But I DO Have An Anti-Virus Program Installed!
By Ian Scott
The other day, I briefly discussed why it is practically impossible to
become infected with an email virus in Linux. But you’re not using
Linux, and you’re going to stick with MS Windows. And you’ve got an
anti-virus program installed, yet, you still ended up with an
infection. How come?
I’ve heard that from folks a number of times. They simply
cannot believe that their computer has been infected, because they’ve
been running and using anti-virus software since they purchased their
computer.
So what happened? Well, there are a couple of possibilities
(yes, there are quite a few possibilities, but we’ll stick with email
viruses for now):
1. It is possible that you received an email containing a
virus before your anti-virus software was able to download an updated
virus signature base. A signature is a unique pattern in a file. The
anti-virus program scans for these signatures when looking for evil bad
code. If a new virus is released, and your anti-virus software doesn’t
have its signature, well… you’re at risk of being infected if you
attempt to run or open the email/attachment.
2. You do have a subscription for your anti-virus software
right, that allows you to update virus signatures? You do realize you
should be doing this on at least a daily basis?
If your anti-virus program hasn’t had its database of
signatures updated in sometime, then you’re not really being protected.
Because I don’t use Windows much, I can’t make any recommendations as
to what specific anti-virus software you should use. There are a couple
of things to keep in mind though, when choosing an anti-virus software.
1. You should be able to update the signature database. Most
of the popular anti-virus software makers, (if not all of the them)
will provide this service. Usually it’s on a subscription basis for one
year, after which you will need to pay a fee to continue updating the
database.
2. It should be easy and simple to check any files on your computer that you want to scan.
Some of the more popular anti-virus programs include:
Norton, Kaspersky, and McAfee.
The one I use on my Windows machine is eTrust EZ Antivirus.
I’ve been using it for several years, it’s always worked well for me,
and at $19.95 annually for virus signature updates, the price was
right.
Happy virus hunting!
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