Taken from Exchange Magazine, September 2010

One of the main reasons that computer viruses continue to spread across the internet is because the average comptuer user doesn’t know what to look for or how to avoid them.  Some of the most common misconceptions are based on out-dated knowledge or simple misinformation.  Here are a few things you should know:

Viruses don’t want to kill your computer.  ~ The days of insidious viruses trying to render your computer nothing more than a glorified paper weight have come and gone.  The primary objective now is to separate you from your hard earned money.  To accomplish this, typically it’s in their best interest to leave your computer operational so they can go about their duty collecting your personal information or infecting other computers.

That email you got about “The Worst Virus Ever!!!” is a hoax. ~ It may even cite big corporations, news organizations and other trustworthy sources in in effort to convince you to forward the message on to everyone you know.  But if it really was the worst virus ever, you probably would have heard about it directly from one of those sources, and not an email from your sister’s co-worker’s long lost high-school friend.  While these are not typically the work of viruses or spammers, they can weaken spam filters and confuse the people who forward the message onward.  (ICS Note: If you are unsure of the validity of any email, visit www.snopes.com and type in the email subject in their search engine.)

That new anti-virus system you’ve never seen before, screaming about all the trojans you have actually is a virus. ~ If you think about it, what better way to disguise a virus than to play off of people’s fear of that very thing?  Many viruses are designed to look identical to popular anti-virus systems, and will tell you about all of the “trojans” and “viruses” your system has (all fictional), and offers to remove them… for the low, low price of your credit card informatio!

You can still get viruses with a fully updated anti-virus system. ~ It’s like having the best goalie in the league: He’ll stop most of the shots coming his way, but every once and a while, one can slip through the cracks.  Anti-virus systems rely on their virus definition databases to look for malware.  If a new type of virus emerges, there will be a period of time where the anti-virus companies need to update their databases and push those updated identities out to all of the users.  During this time, that virus can run rampant.  Put simply, it’s never safe to open an unidentified email attachment. Ever.

You don’t have to erase your computer. ~ But you do need to know what you’re doing!  Seek out someone (like ICS Computer) who successfully removes viruses on a regular basis.  You should also act quickly: the less time a virus resides on your computer the better.