Learning About Internet Security

Internet Viruses

Introduction
Computer Viruses have been with us for a long time, but today with the popularity of the Internet, the threat posed by a computer virus should now be elevated to a status comparable with grand-scale embezzlement or a rampaging violent disgruntled employee.  Because many businesses depend on their computer records, a malicious computer virus can quickly put you out of a job and your employer out of business.  The recent "I Love You" virus caused over $15 billion damage to computer systems worldwide in a matter of hours.

Becoming Infected
Can you get a virus simply by visiting a web site? Not usually. Web pages, by themselves, only contain text that can easily be read. However, a web site may use plug-ins or other similar components, which may have viruses, attached to them. Viruses can also be attached to FTP file downloads, some types of images, compressed files, or even multimedia content. Normally, infected plug-ins will not use a security certificate or similar measure for authentication.

Virus Protection
Protection software from virus infection can be purchased and installed on each computer in use. However, if you don't enable the virus protection and keep its databank up-to-date, it can't help you. The better quality virus software programs will check both web site content and email messages in realtime. They will also let you know when it is time to update the virus databank.

Virus Protection Effectiveness
Virus protection software is not always effective. As long as there is information in the virus databank to compare against, the virus protection software should be able to do its job. But it can only check for those viruses that it knows about. New viruses are spread between databank updates, hence the need for updates.

Virus Mutations
Viruses can mutate. Some viruses are written in a way that permits them to adapt themselves according to your computer. Once this metamorphosis takes place, they may become undetectable by your virus protection software. These types of mutating viruses are exceptionally difficult to locate and remove.

Emailed Viruses
A virus infected email attachment is the most common way that viruses are spread through the Internet. Receiving the infected email is not known to spread the virus, if it is completed deleted from the system before the attachment is opened. But opening the attachment will spread the virus. This means making sure that the infected email is not simply moved to your Deleted Items folder where it could accidentally be opened at a later date, but that it is truly deleted from your computer. Be sure to empty your Trash or Deleted Items folder to completely remove the affected file.

Some virus protection software companies offer you the ability to check for viruses on both incoming and outgoing email. "Outgoing email checking" helps to prevent the spreading of viruses. If your software does offer this feature, make sure that it is enabled as the default setting.

Virus Protection Conflicts
Installing other software programs may interfere with the virus protection software. Usually this is caused because the other software's installation program will probably need to modify system files that the virus protection software is trying to protect. In some cases the installation will noticeably fail, while in other cases, the installation program may be fooled into thinking that its attempt to write to the system files was successful and you will not notice the failed installation until you go to run the new program. It may be necessary for you to temporarily disable your virus protection software during the installation if you experience these types of problems.

Computer Performance
Because your virus protection software is checking all incoming data, you may notice perceptible delays when web pages are loading. This added processing overhead, in most cases, should have a minimal impact on your normal Internet browsing. If it does, then it may be time to upgrade your computer. Always consider purchasing and installing additional RAM before committing to a new computer.

Conclusion
In conclusion, Internet Viruses can be an extremely dangerous security risk, but with prudence and vigilance they can also be a relatively easy foe to thwart.  For additional information on Internet viruses, see these other web sites for: 

Internet Hoaxes 
http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html#notajoke 
http://www.scambusters.com/VirusHoaxes.html 

Internet Virus Information web sites
http://www.wt.net/WT.net/virus.htm 
http://kumite.com/myths 

Next Month's Topic: Internet Viruses

By Steve Duell
ASIS SFBA Webmaster