Safeguarding Against Computer Virus

Have you ever come across a situation where you were working on the computer and the computer suddenly crashes ? Have you ever faced situations where, on inserting a floppy disk or flash disk, your computer fails to function properly? Have you ever faced situations in which , after running a software for example, your computer works slower than normal or you see unusual error messages? Have you ever come across situations in which you were unable to access the disk drives or you see distorted menus and dialog boxes? Well, if you have then your computer may have been infected by virus because these are some of the signs of a virus attack!!!

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Today I’m here to inform you all not about computer virus but how we can prevent our computers from being infected by viruses

What is a computer Virus?

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user. The original may modify the copies or the copies may modify themselves. A virus can only spread from one computer to another when its host is taken to the uninfected computer.A person might have a computer virus infection when the computer starts acting differently.These viruses may ‘corrupt’ or damage various files on your computer and thus its important to protect your computer from viruses.

There are ways to protect your computer from viruses.

Firstly,Antivirus Software Packages could be installed on your computer.

All computers should have some form of virus protection. This does not necessarily come standard with your computer, therefore you have to purchase virus software. Do not use free software, while many virus protection companies offer free trials it is not advisable to use these as your primary method of protection. Many people keep moving from one virus software to another to draw out the time before they had to purchase, the problem with this is you never get up to date protection. New viruses come out constantly. Most free trials do not allow you to update in order to protect against the latest viruses. Therefore, its always better to have an antivirus software installed.

Secondly, You must keep updating the scanner

Just having a virus detection program is not enough though. You have to keep them up to date, failing to do so could mean that you are still vulnerable to any virus that came out since you last installed the program, and with 400 new viruses a month that could leave you very vulnerable. Depending on how much you use your computer you should be downloading updates anywhere from once a week to once a month and if necessary you could update daily (as in the case where you have very important information stored on your computer).

Thirdly, you must Run the scanner frequently

Not only should you keep your scanner up to date, you should often run frequent scans. Every major virus protection/detection program contains a continuously running scanner to attempt to detect virus activity. These scanners are getting better every day. They are becoming more efficient at detecting suspicious activity and thus discovering new viruses that had not yet been reported. However this scanner is not enough, you should have your scanner do a full scan fairly frequently to make sure a virus hasn't slipped by the active scanner. Once again the frequency of the scans should be determined according to how heavy a computer user you are, if you use the computer daily and spend a lot of time on the Internet, checking email, and using disks from outside sources, then you should scan at least weekly. Most programs will allow you to set up automated scans, but the method for scanning varies depending on the software package.

Moving on to the fourth point, Adhere to the following Internet guidelines

The Internet is now the most common way for a virus to spread. Internet downloads and email attachments account for over 90% of all viruses. While a good virus detection program will protect you from known viruses, and a good number of unknown viruses, it is a good idea to be careful, as no virus detection program is perfect. There are some guidelines