A lot of customers come into Cowabunga! Computers upset and swearing that they have good antivirus and pissed off at their moms cousins neighbors uncles kids and their boyfriends and girlfriends cause the computer should not infected with a virus or spyware. So they come in and say “Eh, so why I have to buy this kind Norton kind stuff?” Well, you could have Tylenol in the medicine cabinet but you still get headaches right? OOOOOHHhhhhhhh! Its what you do with your software later that makes all of the difference in the world.
Trojan viruses and spyware and adware are getting more and more sophisticated. I just heard Brandon in our office mention that he was reading the Washington Post last night online and WHAM, he got infected as well. The first response in his head was, wait a second, I did all of my updates. Well, its not only that no more. There are so many things to consider when going online now days you have to begin to wonder if its even worth it!
It used to be that you could get viruses and junk from the kind of emails you read and the attachments that you open. Seriously, do you remember the Brittany Spears Trojan? 30% of the worlds computers got infected when they were sent attachments of her in some crazy pictures. 30%! Imagine if she was actually cute and hot! Sheesh. A coule of weeks ago, a report from cnet came out that Jessica Biel is a viral girl. Meaning emails sent with her name in the heading were most prone to be infected.
But, viruses come in all shapes and sizes now. One of our technicians Ryan, came back into the office after visiting a customer and says, “You wouldn’t believe what was happening!” He goes on to tell us a regular weekly maintenance customer of ours thought they had a virus on their computer and started to go ahead and scan the computer with an anti virus scanner. Problem was, the customer was scanning it with a virus! DOH!
Some of these spyware and virus deals come wrapped up to look freakishly authentic!
I remember when I first saw the pop up on a customer computer that said “YOU HAVE BEEN INFECTED”.
I remember looking at that thinking, the new WINDOWS antispyware is pretty cool ! The problem was, it was a virus with an interface that looked so similar to the WINDOWS logo that I thought it was the real deal! Same color scheme but looked a little bit too off.
Trojans can wake up at any time. Viruses can clog up your network until the day comes when Oceanic Road Runner security writes you a letter to clean up your computer cause you have something in the computer that is clogging (or spamming) the network! Spyware can mess up your omputer and take valuable information about you (user data) can use that for marketing, install keyloggers (applications that remember what you typed.. ie passwords).
The world is a scary place. Here are some quick tips with how to go ahead and take care of them.
- Make sure that your Operating System is up to date. Doesn’t matter if you use Google Chrome, Internet Explorer or FireFox. Go to START-ALL PROGRAMS and look for the WINDOWS UPDATE
- Just because you have a MAC or Apple product, trust me, it don’t mean a thing.
- Always always always make sure your anti virus and anti spyware software are also up to date. There are thousands of viruses and spyware that come out everyday. Some of these applications need to be updated multiple times a day!
- Be aware of the symptoms that you can be infected. Is your computer running very slow? Do you constantly get reminders to download software to prevent viruses? Is your computer suddenly acting weird? Shutting down, not being able to access your homepage or browser not working?
- There is an old saying… Nothing is Free. For some reason, in the internet age, everyone seems to think the old rules don’t apply. They click here and there for a chance to win a free Ipod or emoticon or something. Trust me, you will most likely get more than what you asked for. There is nothing free folks!
One question I get a lot at work is, “how do I prevent this?” Well, the honest truth is, you can't. There are reports that say as much as 80% of the worlds internet web pages are actually fake and corrupted. Tend to believe it. It like people asking others, how do I prevent a car accident? Very hard to answer. There are too many events going on around you that you cannot control. But if you have the right tools and knowledge, you can at least know what to do when something happens. Same thing goes. When I was surfing the web and got infected, reach for the update buttons on my applications, update it, grab it, disconnect from the internet, scan my PC and go for a walk with my dog. A couple of hours later, all good and all pau!
Make sure your computer is everything it is. Make sure that it is running fine and remember, when in doubt, take it to your PC technician. They can offer free scans and give you an idea if you got infected or your hardware is actually damaged. And if you don’t have one, give us a call at 808-949-6888 and we would be happy to check it out for you for free or give you a contact number if you have a Apple product!
So the next time you have a headache, reach for a Tylenol. Next time your computer gets goofy, faster you get to it, the better off you are! Happy surfing and yes, next month we talk about BLACK FRIDAY!!!
