Posts Tagged ‘antivirus program’

37,000 new malicious viruses were developed each day in 2008 alone!

A virus infection doesn’t just cause data loss, it costs you time as well. It takes time to recreate files, re-install corrupted software, and get your computer back to the way it should be.

Antivirus software makers are constantly playing catch-up. Their products do a good job, but they often leave you hanging when you most need the help, which is when a virus or malware slips past their software and damages your computer.

In this article, I want to tell you about a method you can use to add extra protection to your Windows computer. Especially with Windows 7 coming to market, you can expect a brand new batch of viruses and malware designed to destroy your Windows-based computer.

First, let me give you a little background on malware, free, and commercial antivirus software.

Malware

Computer pros have many different names for software that damages your computer, depending on exactly how it does its dirty work. In this article, I will simplify things by using one word for software that damages your computer: Malware. Malware is MALicious SoftWARE.

Antivirus Software, Your First Line of Defense

By using antivirus software, you’ve taken an important step towards protecting yourself from losing valuable time and money to a malware infection! But you can easily do more.

The first thing you can do is educate yourself about what virus prevention software can and can’t do for you. This software works by monitoring your computer’s activity and checking for malware whenever you do one of the following things: Receive or open an email; Send an email; Open a web page; Open a file.

Whenever antivirus software sees malware in an email, a web page, or a file, it prevents that malware from harming the computer, if possible. Your antivirus program has two basic ways of recognizing malware:

1. Using a large list of known malware. This is like the FBI’s Most Wanted list. It lists known malware, and when the antivirus software sees an email, web page or file that matches the “mugshot” of a known piece of malware, the software tries to block the malware from causing harm.
2. Looking for web pages, emails, and files that act like malware. This is like the “profiling” that the FBI does when looking for a criminal. They look for people who act like the perpetrator, even if that person isn’t currently committing a crime. With this method, antivirus software looks for software that has sneaky behavior, just like malware would.

The problem with method #1 is that new types of malware are constantly being created, at the rate of 37,000 per day! That’s like a good-sized American town, full of malware, cloning itself every day!

Virus software companies are constantly updating their list of malware. BUT, and that is a big BUT, this updating takes time! Every time a new piece of malware is put out “in the wild” on the Internet, several days pass before the antivirus software makers can update their list of malware. And then, your virus software has to go grab this list from the software maker’s web site, which can take more time.

In some cases, your computer can be unprotected for several days or weeks. Believe me, this is PLENTY of time for malware to do its dirty work.

A couple of computer braniacs did an experiment a year or two ago. They set up a Microsoft Windows XP computer with no antivirus software or firewall or Windows Updates, and connected it to the Internet. It took 4 minutes for that computer to get infected by malware! Four minutes!!! That’s like a skinny, underweight computer nerd (hey, that’s me!) getting in the ring with Mike Tyson in his heyday. It’s just not fair! Read on and I’ll show you how to even the odds.

Antivirus software makers have tried to fix the shortcomings of method #1 (the FBI Most Wanted method) with method #2:

With method #2 (The FBI Profiling method), if some malware is new and not on the “Most Wanted” list yet, there’s still a chance that the antivirus software will catch it because of how that malware acts. Sounds pretty good right? Sounds like the software makers have covered all the bases, right? Well, read on and see what can go wrong, even with these two methods trying to protect you.

There are several ways antivirus software can FAIL to catch malware:

1. The malware is new, and the antivirus software doesn’t recognize it.
2. You made a mistake configuring the software (have you SEEN how many options most antivirus software has?! It’s really easy to make a configuration mistake.)
3. The antivirus software was turned off, either accidentally or on purpose.
4. The antivirus software is not very good at its job.

Virtual Machines, Your Ultimate Defense

There’s a really easy way to add a second layer of defense to your Windows computer to beef up the protection provided by your antivirus software, your antivirus firewall, or your free antivirus solution.

You can create a virtual machine on your computer. The virtual machine is like those containers that bomb squads use to detonate bombs. They’re not *completely* indestructible, but if anything bad happens inside of one, it *contains the damage*.

If you set up a virtual machine on your Windows computer, and then use that virtual machine for surfing the web or accessing email, your computer will be much more protected against viruses and malware!

Also, if a virus or malware does happen to sneak past your defenses, it will only contaminate the virtual machine. Virtual machines also give you something else: A Big, Fat, Giant Undo button for your PC!

You can use something called virtual machine snapshots to erase any damage that malware could possibly cause to your virtual machine.

To learn how to use virtual machines to *completely* protect your Windows PC from viruses and malware, check out http://virusproofing.infojuice.info.

Author: Philip E Morgan
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Canada duty

In the not to distance past, antivirus firewall software did not exist. You would have to purchase antivirus software, firewall software and spyware all separately. There was not an all in one package containing all three together in the same suite like there is today. Software manufacturers are now making software in combination packages that are a perfect fit for small business owners and home computer use too.

Antivirus Firewall Software comprises three parts. One is the antivirus portion that keeps viruses from attacking your system and can remove those already on your system. Another part of the system is the Firewall software that prevents any information from your computer or to your computer without your permission in the prescribed code written into the software. The third part of the software would be the Spyware Software to prevent and remove Spyware from your system.

Why do you need all this protection you ask? Antivirus Software is to prevent and remove viruses from your computer. Firewall software is to prevent hackers and hacking software from accessing your personal information like bank account numbers or your identity. Spyware software is to prevent and remove Spyware from your system. Spyware tracks your movement on the Internet for reasons that can be good or bad. The good is depositing cookies on your computer to recognize you when you revisit a site. Banks use this type of cookie to help keep other people from accessing your information for example. Some sites use cookies for advertising purposes. Some of these are harmless and some are not.

How does each of these work you ask? Antivirus Software scans all incoming data from email, Internet downloads and file sharing you may have with other people. Any good Antivirus program updates itself often to keep up with all the new known codes viruses are written with. Without keeping current the software can not know which codes to exclude. New viruses are written constantly in very large numbers. Virus codes can be very complex and creative but are written in code just like beneficial software. Keeping up to date is critical for good protection.

All computers talk to each other using data packets. This is where Firewall Software comes in. It is the job of the Firewall Software to monitor this data for corrupted or altered packets of info. It will not allow any data to enter your system if it notes any packets that are not written into the software to accept. The software can even pop up a box to ask if you want to accept this type of data if it is not recognized. Good Firewall Software is needed to keep your system safe.

The third part of this software suite is Antispyware Software. Spyware programs are not designed to crash your operating system but are designed to spy on all your activity on the Internet as well as files on your computer and gather that data for someone else’s benefit. Antispyware Software is to keep this software from attaching to your computer system and to remove any of this software already on your system. Spyware can cripple your system performance over time if it allowed on your system. I have seen computers with hundreds of spyware cookies on the system and the computer was so slow it was unusable. After the spyware was removed the computer operated at normal speed.

My advice is to purchase good Antivirus Firewall Software and keep it updated. With this type of software loaded on your system you can enjoy your computer for surfing the Internet and for file sharing with your friends or for business purposes.

Posted by LaZinnia Manley on December 08, 2009

Please visit Antivirus Firewall Software for more information. If you need this software Please go to Antivirus Firewall Software and follow the instructions.

Author: LaZinnia Manley
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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it started 2 days ago.. everytime i turn my computer on it says viewpoint manager error. so i went and deleted the viewpoint manager folder and since then everytime i use google and click on 1 of the links of search it opens a different page and it takes me to a totally different website from what i clicked … also a real-time page keeps interrupting my internet browsing every once in a while! pleez help me

Answer:
somehow you got the hijacker virus, you need to run the antivirus program in the safe mode. start, run, type msconfig, boot ini. select safe mode, with internet. then when it starts in safe mode,run your antivirus. Hopefully this will pick it up, then go to the run again, and type msconfig, then in the first tab you will see the button for original boot, do that and it will reboot in normal.