30 January 2003

Avoiding Virus Attacks

As a firm believer in having good virus protection, I recommend using Norton Antivirus from Symantec. Although this Tutor Tip is applicable to most antivirus programs, terms used refer to Norton Antivirus.

Enable Auto-Protect and make sure Auto-Protect starts when Windows starts.

Enable Script Blocking. Script Blocking scans Visual Basic and JavaScript scripts for viruses. Normally, these mini-programs help web pages perform tasks, such as displaying a navigation bar or playing an audio file.

Enable e-mail scanning. This will ensure a virus or worm cannot sneak in on a message. Just to be on the safe side, enable outgoing mail scanning (Norton Antivirus 2002 and higher.)

Enable protection for instant messenger services, such as AOL, MSN, and Yahoo.

Scan your hard drive for viruses on a regular basis - once a week is preferred, but once a month will suffice for most.

Scan all floppy disks before first use.

Enable Automatic LiveUpdate to update your virus definition files. Scanning your files and auto-protecting you computer will be meaningless if you do not maintain an up-to-date list of viruses. Set LiveUpdate to check for updates whenever you are online to ensure protection from new worms and viruses.

Create and maintain a Norton AntiVirus rescue disk set to facilitate recovery from certain boot viruses.

Make periodic backups of your hard disk. Periodic is a relative term. How often you backup your data depends on two things. How much work would it be and how much money would it cost to recreate the data if they are lost?

Buy legal copies of all software you use and make write-protected backups.

Don't open e-mail messages and e-mail attachments from people you don't know. Verify that the "author" of the e-mail has sent the attachments. Newer viruses can send e-mail messages that appear to be from a person you know.

Do not set your e-mail program to "auto-run" attachments. Disable e-mail preview in MS Outlook and Outlook Express.

Password protect your shared network drives. (Contact your network administrator about this.)