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Virus Protection

Staying One Step Ahead of the Game

If you have virus protection, a part of a good multi-layered defense, connecting to the internet is very valuable for your business, and relatively safe.

What is a Computer Virus? One definition from the Microsoft website is “Computer viruses are small software programs that are designed to spread from one computer to another and to interfere with computer operation.” As long as there is software, there will be “hackers” and “crackers” who create virus software to exploit our computers and data!

These virus programs are also called: trojan horse virus, worms, and email viruses. Viruses can modify, damage, erase, or broadcast your data from your computer or even damage, control, or open ports to your computer! Their intent is to disrupt the service of your computer, and there are over 70,000 virus definitions!

What is the Solution? Virus protection software will prevent most of these issues, assuming you are always running your program, and updating the definition files in real time. and you are not attacked by the very latest virus before your virus programs develop the fix! There are several antivirus software programs that do a great job protecting your business before you have problems. Which virus protection program should you use? There are several ways to go!

What are some symptoms of virus infection? If your computer is dramatically slowed, has frequent lockups, is freezing, crashing, or restarting automatically, you may have a virus problem. If you have a loss of critical files, some programs don’t work well or fail, your antivirus software is crashing, your operating system becomes unstable, or you get strange error messages, you may have a virus problem.

How can you tell if you are infected? One way to check if you suspect that there is a virus, or any program that you did not install running on your computer, you can CHECK your System Resources. Close all programs and go to the Desktop. Press CTRL/Shift/Escape to pop up the Windows Task Manager window. At the bottom of the window you will see CPU Usage expressed as a percentage. Normal is 0%-5% because there is usually activity on your computer. But, if it jumps up from there, you likely have other programs running in the background.

How can you protect your computer network and data?

  • Always run well rated, up to date virus scanning software.
  • Even though your virus software will most likely catch emails with attachments that are infected, it is still a good practice to never open attachments unless you know the sender. Attachments are one of the most common ways to send viruses.
  • If you copy any data from another computer with Thumb Drives (flash drives; USB Drives), CD's or DVD's you may be copying malware. Your Antivirus or anti spyware programs will screen for these problems, if it is turned on and up to date.
  • Make sure your operating system is up to date! Your operating system software is constantly updated as problems become known. Microsoft Updates automatically does this for you. (add link)
  • Use the latest version of your web browser for the same reason! The current version is the most secure version.
  • Setting up limited accounts is a very good idea. Limited accounts protect your user account settings so that a user can access most files, but the user cannot change system settings. Limited accounts prevent a hacker from accessing and harming your systems. You can set up limited accounts in Windows Operating Systems, but some software programs are not compatible with limited accounts and this makes it difficult to set up printers, and drivers to other applications. As a result most computers are set up with “Administrator” privileges which are easier to hack. We often set up systems with limited access in many programs and administrator access to the programs you use most often, like SoftDent, one dental practice management software, which requires more open access. If we are your hardware administrators, ask us about your system!

    Virus Protection is one part of a multi-layered defense. Be sure to add Spyware Protection and a firewall for the best protection possible.



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