Living With Viruses

Hi! How are you?

I sent you this file in order to have your advice.

See you later. Thanks

I am sure you must have received one or many of such e-mails. That was the work of the SirCam virus, which has affected millions of users worldwide. Let's face it, computer viruses are here to stay, and so are the anti-virus companies.

If you are using Microsoft products, viruses will keep coming your way. Virus code writers find Microsoft products more attractive because viruses spreading through Microsoft products like Outlook Express can affect the maximum number of users worldwide. When Linux becomes more and more popular, I am sure they will start writing more virus code for Linux-based systems as well!

Every time there is a major virus attack, people talk

frantically about PC security and anti-virus packages. Then everything is

forgotten and the situation gets back to normal, that is, until the next virus

strikes.

Virus programmers have a wide-open gateway to send in their

babies into your PC - your e-mail system. They have also started using a new

powerful tool - the psychology of an average e-mail user. The combination is

deadly. If you want to survive in the Internet world, you must learn to live

with these viruses.

How it happens?

E-mail is the most attractive carrier for viruses, as air and

water are for biological viruses. As a Net denizen, you must use e-mail, and if

you use e-mail, you are prone to virus attacks. Millions of e-mail addresses

worldwide are available on CDs costing as low as $99. A virus programmer can

send his deadly masterpiece to millions of e-mail users on the very fist day.

Even if a minimal percentage of these users open the e-mail attachments, their

PCs get infected and the avalanche of virus attack follows.

Virus programmers are not only smart code developers; they

are also becoming smart psychoanalysts! Take for example the recent virus

attacks.

Many e-mail users are in their teens and are mad about love

and sex. Knowing their psychology well, the viruses, which pretended to be love

letters, were extremely successful in entering millions of PCs through e-mails.

For that matter, even many corporate e-mail users who dreamt of receiving love

letters from their colleagues, fell into this trap.

The latest SirCam virus was aimed at the corporate users. A

corporate e-mail user can expect to receive attachments for his advice, or

information that he requested from someone. If someone is asking for your

advice, you feel important.

If you have sent inquiries to many companies, you will always

be expecting their replies, with attached information or quotations. That is the

psychological trap for you to open the attachment without hesitation. You must

learn to analyze these situations and avoid the virus attacks.

Install anti-virus software

This is the first thing you must have on your PC. But

remember that the anti-virus is as good as you make it! If you do not update the

virus information files regularly, the anti-virus is as good as dead.

The anti-virus software is an intelligent software that

learns from previous virus attacks and uses that updated information to detect

possible infections on your PC. Unless you provide this latest information in

the form of an update, the anti-virus will be ignorant about new viruses.

The software looks for typical codes and other indications in

a file to decide if it is infected or not. If these are not detected, even an

infected file will appear to be clean.

The McAfee anti-virus has a virus information file that

stores information about 58237 viruses at the last update. Without this

information it will be helpless. So, you have to be very particular about

updating this information.

Also please note that a new virus can sometimes reach you

even before the anti-virus companies detect it and add it to their update files.

Get virus scanning e-mail accounts

If you are using a VSNL or other ISP account, or a free

e-mail account that does not support virus scanning, get an e-mail account on

Yahoo.com or usa.net. Any e-mail with a suspicious attachment can then be

forwarded to one of these accounts for virus scanning.

Yahoo allows you to scan the attachment with Norton

anti-virus before you open it. Usa.net deletes all infected attachments before

saving the e-mails to your inbox and leaves you a message that a particular

message with a virus infected attachment was deleted.

Opening a pure text message does not infect your PC. So you

can safely open a text only e-mail without any risk. The real dynamite is packed

in the attachment - so, be careful with the attachments.

If you get the mail from a known person with an infected

attachment, don't open that attachment. Call him/her on phone and request to

send a clean attachment again. A telephone call can save you from a disaster.

If the infected attachment has come from an unknown person,

just delete the mail. Some infected attachments come with a double extension

like picture1.jpg.bat or picture2.gif.exe or some such extension. This is a sure

indication of a virus attachment and must be deleted immediately.

Even in the case of Yahoo.com or usa.net, please remember

that it may take them some time to update their anti-virus and some infected

files can escape their attention in that period, which can be as long as a day

or two!

Get specialized e-mail scanning software

If you have a large corporate user base on the LAN, get

specialized e-mail scanning software installed on your server. Many such

solutions are available, but they are expensive. You must choose the right one

to meet your requirements.

Some of them can automatically update themselves, so there is

less of a hassle of manual updates. Of course, nothing is 100 percent foolproof

due to the time lag between release of the virus and detection by the anti-virus

companies.

Most important of all, you have to be careful yourself in

handling your e-mails. Think twice before opening an attachment. Scan for virus.

Check for double extensions and delete such attachments immediately.

Don't expect any unexpected love letters! Don't expect that

your boss will suddenly start asking for your advice on important matters on

e-mail - if you do believe it is a genuine e-mail, still scan it for a virus.

Many screen savers need to run their own scripts on your PC,

avoid these, as the scripts may contain virus code. And lastly, when in doubt -

call the sender on phone to resend a clean attachment.

Ashok Dongre is an advertising and marketing professional,

specializing in Internet/Intranet strategies and web site design.