A new virus or worm has spread to many computers recently and as the news says it already infected about 9 million PCs. We really can't predict when a new virus, trojan, worm, malware, spyware, or any other malicious software that can be made, will come up and spread and infect our computers systems. And the bad thing about it is that we practically can't do anything about it at the time the new "thing" is produced.

Well actually, there are some few things we can do to prevent these items to infect our systems when they try to get in to our computers. I have made some pointers for readers of this blog as security measures that may help in mitigating the risks of computer infections.

1.a We need to understand that for a malicious software (virus, trojan, worm, etc.) to get in to your system, they must have a way of literally installing themselves into your PC. One of the ways is by sending themselves through mass-mail or spam emails where they would be either an attachment of the software pretending to be something of-interest to the recepient or the email could have a hyperlink to a website that is a host of the software. It is need less to say, that and over and over again security professionals alike have said this "Do not open that email, Do not click that link, Do not download that file".

1.b Another old version of malicious spreading is by having themsleves attached to what seems to be legitimate applications being sold in the open market (e.g. game softwares, office tools, etc.).. what they do is and this is more applicable in the old times where piracy of software CDs were widespread, is that the person who is selling the bootleg CD would include the virus or worm into CD itself so that when the person who bought it installs it into the computer it can simply jump up to the local harddrive and start multiplying itself.
In modern times, this is not so much of a risk because of the effective bans on software piracy. Although this is still true with file sharing through the internet. For those that do not know of this, there are ways to share files through the internet, which has been to put it simply, been a replacement for selling bootleg softwares. The only thing now is these file sharing methods are usually free and unmoderated and thus whoever wants to share a file or a software of legitimate nature but also wants to spread a virus can easily do so through this method. With this, I say, please please be careful with what you download and if its not necessary just don't do it and just buy the software from a nearby store or from the manufacturer's website. Prevention is always best than Cure.

2.a Get at least an anti-virus and a spyware prevention tool installed in your computer. As I said in 1.b, prevention is best and having a software that can do it for you is both convenient and great because you practically don't need to do anything. There are some tools that I have personally experienced using and found them to be useful. For a comprehensive system security Symantec's Norton 360 is recommended for home PCs and laptops as it has multiple functionalities that will help your computer in shape. McAfee also has its own which is McAfee Total Protection software which is also a multi functioned software to keep your computer safe. Official websites of these software is located at http://us.mcafee.com/ and http://store.norton.com, for those interested in buying one.

2.b For spyware protection, I would recommend, spyware terminator or spybot-S&D which I have used for quite sometime now. Both of these products protect you from spywares and other malicious softwares that sometimes your comprehensive security software cannot detect. I personally now use, spyware terminator as I found that it is compatible with almost any other security software installed in a PC. It also has a Host Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS) that warns the user before a software, driver, or system file gets installed. I found it useful whenever I have a friend in need of help, although as a Cons of it, if you are not that familiar of what is a legitimate software and what is not then the HIPS is more of a risk than a helper. I found that more often than not, layman users of computers would "block" even those drivers and softwares that are legitimate and end up not being able to use their computers or have troubles in running a program. The good side of it whether or not you activate the HIPS, its spyware scanner is very effective when it comes to removing malicious softwares. For those interested, these programs are FREE and can be downloaded from http://spybot.search-destroy2009.com and http://www.spywareterminator.com/.

2.c For both 2.a and 2.b it is crucial that the user must always update their security software's database to be able to cope up with protection against new viruses and other malicious programs out there.

I leave my readers these tips for now and hope that these maybe helpful.

Thank you! and stay safe! :)