What are Viruses?
Viruses are
basically malicious programs that when launched attack your computer
in various different ways as well as spread themselves
and infect any computer on a network that lacks the proper protection. Opening infected email attachments or
opening infected
files downloaded from the Internet can release these viruses into
your computer and any other unprotected computers on your network.
They can even spread to computers of friends and colleagues who's email addresses
are stored on your computer. Once released these viruses execute
whatever payload they were designed to onto the infected computer or
computers. Some virus' are designed to cripple certain functions
of a computer. Sometimes they are designed to delete certain files
or even the entire hard drive of a computer. Sometimes they can be
used to spread Malware which is described below.
What is Malware?
In the last number of years its Malware that has become
the more prevalent nuisance with users. The words spyware, and
adware are sometimes used interchangeably with the word Malware.
While Malware isn't really the same as a virus in the
traditional sense as it usually isn't normally designed to
replicate and spread itself to other computers on your network
it can cause all sorts of major headaches on whatever computer
it is on and
getting infected with these things is quite easy actually. Easier
in some cases than getting a traditional virus. Once it installs itself on your
computer it can do various things. A very common occurrence is it
will cause a fake antivirus or fake computer diagnostic program to
appear and scare you into believing your computer is damaged or
infected and then tell you that you will have to buy their product
in order to fix the problem when in actuality its simply trying to
get you to give out your credit card number. This is commonly known
as a phishing. Along with that it can
also disable your Internet access and other programs. Bottom line is
you don't want these things on your computer.
Whatever their payloads, viruses and spyware/adware can do alot of damage so
protecting yourself from them is very important. Susceptibility to these
things is is so prevelant nowadays that many times even the best
antivirus/antispyware software cannot prevent it.
Still having these sort of programs protecting your computer will
certainly severely reduce your chance of infection but not
eliminate the chance completelyt. And if you have these programs but do not properly
maintain them they will ultimately lose their ability to protect you
at all. While both virus infections and spyware/adware infections
can make the lives of home users miserable, if this occurs in a
business environment, that can have catastrophic effects. The
potential loss of data can be quite costly not to mention the costly
downtime to your business while the damage from these infections is
repaired.
How can Kidbrook help?
If you
happen to get infected with either viruses or spyware/adware, removing them
can be quite complicated and time consuming. We are experts at their
removal and repairing the damage they may leave behind. And once we
have you up and running again we will explain and then help you set
up a good plan of protection to reduce the chances of it happening
again. |
