Viruses and malware are getting smarter all the time in how they invade our computer systems. Some of them are still obvious and ask you to click a link that plants something into your operating system, and some of them are just downright clever.

The other week, I got an email from a credit union I belong to and it asked me to update some personal information. I even hovered over the link to see where the link was going to take me to and it almost looked real. Instead of www.XXX.alliantFCU.com, it said something like www.alliant.blahblahblah.com Can you see the difference? In the first domain, my Alliant Credit Union is actually the domain itself (meaning there is a .com or .net or whatever AFTER the name of the place it’s going to). In the second set, the word alliant is there but it was a subset to a domain. The name of that domain was very different from anything that should be associated with a Financial Institution. Without knowing that, there was a good chance I could have clicked it, got infected AND possibly be silly enough to put in information.

Screenshot of malware, "Anitvirus 2010." Looks legit? What would you do if you saw this on your screen?

A screenshot of Microsoft Security Essentials. A surprisingly good, and FREE antivirus program.

There are a few that look almost identical to some of the more popular antivirus solutions like Microsoft Security Essentials or even like a warning from Microsoft themselves. Gotta be careful! In the past year, I wrote a few articles on how to detect the fakes from the real ones but here we go with some of the common things to check for:

1. Look for spelling errors. Lots of the programmers are from other countries where English is not the primary language. Just look at the spelling of anything before you download.
    
2. Download from a reliable source. Download.com is a good source. Otherwise, just be more careful how you download certain applications. Even applications to watch your Korean Dramas with can certainly mess you up!
    
3. Viewing and installing certain types of unfamiliar viewers to watch videos online can introduce malware or viruses. Some reliable and known good ones can be like xvid. Make sure you get a reliable codec when you watch!
    
4. A ton of customers always ask us how they got infected when they had antivirus protection. Well, to be honest, a lot of those depend on how you use it AFTER you got infected. There are some that will detect it properly but for the most part, it’s what you do AFTER that makes the biggest difference. Remember, you can have Tylenol in the medicine cabinet but you can always still get headaches!! Ahhhhhh!!
    
5. Don’t go clicking on everything you see on the browser. That might seem obvious, but if for any reason you cannot get a clean way to shut down a web browser, then go ahead and press ALT F4 and that should shut the page down.
    
6. You have a MAC? Ok. Nice. But MACs can get viruses too. So can Linux systems and other Unix systems. (MAC users represent a market share of less than 12%, and other operating systems represent less than 3% of computer users. I am writing this column for the majority of the readers, so I need to keep this article as general in thought as possible.) Oh, caveat… if you have a MAC and use the WINDOWS interface, yes, you can get a virus. And if you have a MAC and use Safari, you can also get a virus, malware etc. Just as bad. It’s rare, but just as bad. After all, someone who goes through the trouble of creating and spreading this wants to infect as many machines as possible.
    
7. There are a lot of free items out there on the internet. For example, some of the best anti spyware and anti viruses are absolutely free. But remember this; be careful of what you are getting. Click a link to get a free iPad? Bad choice. Trust me. Nobody will give you something for free without trying to get something out of you first, right?
    
8. Don’t go around sticking your USB thumb drive into public computers that you can find like at Kinkos!
    
9. Always do your Windows Updates: START > ALL PROGRAMS > WINDOWS UPDATES. Easy right?
    
10. Scan often. Even if you don’t think that you got infected, go ahead and scan it often. You never know what you could pick up.

Sometimes, we work on machines and we teach our customers how to use the software we installed, and within a week they come crawling back in. They want free service and for the most part, they are appreciative of the support that we give them. But purging a virus over and over again isn’t going to solve why they get infected. Can you imagine how cool it would be to go to a car dealer and ask for a free repair every time we crash it? We have to pay attention to certain habits we have formed when we surf the Internet!

You need to be smart, and stay one step ahead of the “bad guys” when you use the Internet. If you want smarter, then “like us” on facebook at www.facebook.com/cowabunga.computers. We offer industry news, tips, deals and other types of fun stuff on a daily basis. For now, let’s have an awesome 2011 and wish you and yours the very best and safest in Internet surfing!