What Should You Know About Computer Viruses?

You Have Seen My previous Posts On how to Manually Update Antiviruses and Update ESET NOD32 Antivirus but many of the users till dont know what is a virus and how it works for that kind of users here is the tip
Q: What are the signs that a virus is present?

There are several things that may indicate the presence of a virus on
your system.

1. Unexplained file growth in EXE and COM files may indicate an
    appending virus.

2. Programs that used to work now return with some type of error
    message and fail to work at all. This may indicate an overwriting
    virus. Some common messages are "Program to big to fit in memory"
    or "Unknown Command" and other similar messages. Thes should make
    you suspicious.

3. Unexplained directory changes. If you execute a program and then
    find that you are suddenly in a different directory, this may
    indicate that a virus has been hunting for files to infect.

4. A decrease in available system memory. You should know how much
    memory is usually free on your computer. If this number drops, it
    may indicate a TSR virus. This does not always work since some
    viruses do not protect the memory they use.

5. Unexplained ChkDsk errors. Stealth viruses will cause you to get a
    CHKDSK error because they are altering the info before it gets to
    CHKDSK. If you do a CHKDSK /F under this condition, it could CAUSE
    considerable damage to the directory structure when in actuality
    nothing was wrong in the first place.

6. Unexplained disk access. If the floppy or hard drive begin to light
    up all of a sudden for no reason, it could mean viral activity. It
    could also mean that you are running a disk cache with staged
    writes enabled.

7. An overall slowdown in system activity. Programs may take longer to
    execute than normal.

Q: How can I protect myself against viruses

There is one fool-proof positive method. Never run any program that
isn't already on your computer and never use anybody else's disks.
Unfortunately, that is practical. So what is the next best thing?

þ Backups - Make frequent backups of the files on your hard disk.
    Remember that at any given moment you may lose your entire hard
    drive and its contents. Do you have backups of all your important
    files? Things like Phone directories and passwords are especially
    hard to get back.   So be prepared for the worst.

þ Rescue Disk - Many programs such as TBAV and Norton Utilities will
    allow you to create a 'rescue disk', which is a floppy disk that
    can be booted from in an emergency. On this disk will be stored a
    copy of important system info that could be very hard, if not
    impossible to come up with manually. This includes a copy of the
    partition table, Master Boot Record (MBR), CMOS settings, and other
    important system info.

    Also on this disk, you should store utilities that can be used to
    detect, clean, and remove viruses from your hard disk. This disk
    should be write-protected, and should be updated any time you
    make changes to your system.

þ Knowledge - Keeping yourself well-informed about how viruses work,
    any new viruses, and that kind of info is very important. Most of
    the computer using public is entirely ignorant when it comes to
    viruses. By readin this article, you have already made a big step
    at reducing your odds of being hit by a virus.

þ AV Software - There are plenty of good Anti-Virus programs
    available on the market. Most of the good ones are usually
    shareware or freeware. Some are commercial. Many of the commercial
    ones are lousy, too. Using some of the less effective virus
    software can provide a false sense of security.


    What NOT to use:

    The following are products that I feel are not up to par as far as
    AV software goes. I would avoid using them if possible, opting for
    some of the products in the following list. However, if these
    programs are the only ones you can find, then they certainly are
    better than nothing at all.

      þ Norton Anti-Virus (NAV)

      þ Central Point Anti-Virus (CPAV)

      þ Dos v6.0 Anti-Virus

    What TO use

    These are some of the AV products that I DO recommend for you to
    use. The more Anti-Virus software, the better protected you are.
    Allow me to quickly explain what a Heuristic Scan is.

    Normally, a virus scanner will look for a 'signature', a series of
    bytes that occur inside the virus that can be used to identify a
    specific virus. A huruistic scan takes a different approach. It
    evaluates the code and looks for virus-like programming techniques.
    This technique enables the scanner to find new or unknown viruses
    and variations but also tends to cause more false positives and
    takes longer. It is a very useful feature.

      þ VirusScan - by MacAfee, Also known as SCAN. This is the
        standard, and recognizes more than 1300 virus strains. This
        program is readily available and offers frequent updates.
        {Shareware}

      þ F-Prot Anti Virus- by Frisk Software, I highly recommend this
        program. It recognizes nearly as many viruses as SCAN and
        recognizes trojan horse programs, as well. It has both a menu
        driven and command line interface, huriustic scan, virus
        database, and detailed descriptions. {Free for personal use}

      þ Thunder Byte Anti Virus- This is a good package that does alot
        of interesting things. It will create a rescue disk, is highly
        configurable, does CRC test for changed files, and has an
        adjustable heruistic scan. It will also allow you to replace
        the bootstrap loader on your hard drive with a new one that
        will perform an automatic CRC check upon bootup. This will
        allow you to be instantly informed of any boot sector viruses.
        {ShareWare}

      þ Doctor Solomon's Anti Virus ToolKit - Although more expensive
        than the others, this program has some interesting utilities.
        It has "anti-stealth" technology, and an authorization TSR, and
        a Certify TSR, which only allows you to run programs that have been
        checked and had their CRC logged in. {Commercial}

Well, that's it for now. Now that we have covered the basics, that
will allow us to get into the more fun stuff next time, like how to
play with virues. See ya guys next time.

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