Tuesday, June 3, 2008

YeOldeTechy Virus Hunter

OK.....I'm getting good at this, but, I should not have to do this at all.

Elimination of virus infections on Windows Computers.

With my handy-dandy 1 Gig dongle filled with virus killing software I visited a small business in Tracy today and spent 4 hours scanning, killing, and making everything work on this persons Windows XP Professional computer.

Prevention is the Best Medicine

The computer user was surfing the web when a pop-up alerted him/her to the fact that their computer was infected (with moving bugs...how cool). Click on the link to pay for and download virus protection software...only $49.95. Hmmmmmm, well $109.00 later, and now fully infected, the user realized that clicking on the pop-up may have been a bad idea.

RULE #1: NEVER click on a pop-up.....NEVER. Practice safe computing....always.

Once YeOldeTechy Virus Hunter was on-site, I discovered that the Admin login has NO password....this allows hackers free access to your computer....Neon Sign: I'm not protected, even a little bit...hack me!

RULE #2: Password protect all your login's. And make that password HARD to guess. easypassword.......h%ArD#5PaS$w0rd&&

Also, there was no virus protection software on this computer.

RULE #3: Buy (yes, buy) decent virus protection software and install it on your computer. Norton Anti-virus or McAfee are perfectly decent. AVG makes a good free product, as does TrendMicro.

Microsoft has a free spyware program...Defender.

RULE #4: Download and use Windows Defender. Who else knows Windows as well as Microsoft.

Summary

Surf wisely, and proactively protect your computer. It's a nasty world out there......be safe.


UPDATE

See this interesting article about what web domains are the most dangerous.