Unwelcome Visitors

A good friend of mine recently had a situation with her family's home computer that is unfortunately all too common. Her computer was infected with what is known in the computer industry as malware. This is a blanket term used to describe many categories of "bad" software including computer viruses, adware and spyware. In my friend's case, her computer was spewing a stream of pornographic ads whenever she launched her web browser. In situations like this, I always ask if the victim has good backups, and if not, we make one as quickly as possible. Once all the important data has been backed up to a tape, CD/DVD or other removable media, it is time for the arduous task of reformatting the computer and performing a fresh install of the computer's operating system and applications.

So what can be done to prevent this unwanted intrusion in the first place?

The first place to start is to ensure that your computer is up to date with the latest patches, or bug fixes, from the vendor. Both Microsoft and Apple have easy to use mechanisms for keeping a system automatically up to date.

Next the system should be protected with a firewall. A firewall is a program that acts as a sort of security guard for your computer. Most prevent programs on your computer from interacting on the network without your permission and prevents outside systems from communicating with your computer in any way you have forbidden. There are several quality commercial firewall packages. Additionally, Microsoft now provides a free firewall with the latest version of Windows XP and Windows Vista. Apple also has an excellent firewall built into the Mac operating system.

Finally, we get to anti-virus and malware detection software. These programs scan your computer for known signs of an infection. They usually offer some mechanism for cleaning up the mess left behind by these unwelcome visitors, but I tend to err on the side of caution and do a reinstall after any infection. However, whether you reformat or allow the tool to clean things up the best it can, you need to know that there is a problem in the first place. The alerts these tools provide are often the first indication that you have a problem with your computer.

Whew! That was quite a bit of technical jargon all at once. In the future, I will look at each of these topics in greater detail and include some in depth reviews of various security related products. Please feel free to email me or leave a comment with suggestions or questions.