Pulborough Computer Club

Malware

What is it?

It's software with a malevolent purpose that might be running on your machine without your knowledge. It arrives unannounced in email attachments, email bodies, over the internet without the aid of email at all and, more rarely these days, on infected floppy discs or CDs.

There's a complete e-book on the topic at Virus Tutor It's a couple of years old now, but none the worse for that.

What will it do?

It all depends on what it's designed to do. Some are passive. Some will try to damage your software system. There's at least one that tries to destroy your machine's BIOS. Some modern ones allow your machine to be turned into a zombie which on external command will act as spam server or act in a concerted denial of service attack on Microsoft. None of them are good.

What can I do to prevent this?

• Always use a firewall when on the internet. Windows XP has one built in, but something like ZoneAlarm is even better. You don't need the Pro version; the free one is fine.
• Always use up to date antivirus software.
• Get and routinely use a spyware remover such as Ad-aware or Spybot - Search and Destroy
• Always keep Windows up to date.
• Set Outlook Express to always read email as plain text.
• If you can't bring yourself to do the item above, to prevent 'beacons' embedded in email from calling home, remove Outlook Express's preview pane (View/Layout)
• Refrain from opening attachments if you don't know what they are. Curiosity killed the cat.
• If somebody gives you a CD or floppy disc, virus check it before using it. (You should disable your CD's autoplay feature for this to be an effective precaution.
• THINK FIRST

There is complementary advice here.

This might seem paranoid, but you should worry about not being paranoid enough. They are out to get you.

© Pulborough Computer Club 2000 - 2008.

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