It pays to boost your PC's immune system

By Francis Ivanovich of I.T.Werx of Cape Girardeau

Technology and the Internet have dramatically lowered the costs of sharing information. Instead of printing and mailing catalogs and price lists, businesses simply send CD-ROMs or just put it on a Web site. Because of this, Internet access and email are minimum technology requirements for nearly all business today. Unfortunately, with the use of these tools comes the threat of exposure to potentially devastating malicious software.

Consider this very possible scenario: Fred, an employee of a regional wholesale distributor, uses the Internet to order inventory, track shipments, and communicate with customers and vendors. A computer virus residing on a salesman's laptop finds Fred's email address and sends a copy of itself to him as an attachment. Fred sees the familiar return address, opens the file, and unwittingly infects his PC.

Installing an anti-virus program is the number one recommendation of computer and network security professionals. However, new viruses and variants are hatched every day. Without regular updates, anti-virus programs offer little protection.

Because downloading new virus definitions can be tedious, users and network administrators often skip updating for weeks or even months. Therefore, it is a good idea to choose an anti-virus program that includes an automatic updating feature, and make sure that it is enabled.

Malicious software comes in several variations, most commonly viruses. A computer virus is a program that causes damage to the host system, makes copies of itself, and distributes the copies to other computers. Because they are programs, viruses need to be run to cause damage. This is why users should not run programs without being absolutely sure of its authenticity. In contrast, a worm acts like a virus but requires no user action to accomplish its destruction.

The damage caused by malware ranges from minor annoyances to the catastrophic. Particularly tenacious viruses require the affected computer be completely wiped, the operating system and software reinstalled. Certain data, if lost, may be completely unrecoverable. In any case, computer viruses cause disruption of business, divert resources from productive tasks, and add to maintenance costs.

The developers of these programs use new technologies like instant messaging and other sophisticated methods to disseminate their evil creations. The recent Mydoom worms are a case in point. According to the British technology information service vnu.net, the A variant affected 15 percent of global email traffic within the first 24 hours of its release.

Typically, the faster a virus spreads before being detected the more damage it causes. Mydoom.A and B have enhanced their survival using randomized emails and the KaZaA peer-to-peer file sharing network as means of replication. Mydoom.B also blocks access to the Windows Update and several anti-virus Web sites. It is likely to be among the most destructive viruses spawned to date.

A serious effect of such viruses is slowing down private networks and the Internet. A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack uses malicious software to overload a targeted Web site by causing hundreds or thousands of infected computers to visit the site at the same time. Large scale attacks have the potential to cause serious slowdowns for all Internet traffic.

Because of the danger to the nation's information infrastructure, the National Cyber Security Division of the new Department of Homeland Security is addressing the problem by establishing the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (http://www.us-cert.gov). US-CERT is a government/private sector partnership formed to coordinate preparedness and response to cyber attacks. All U.S. computer users are encouraged to visit the site, learn more about preventing cyber-crime, and register for security updates via email.

Anti-virus programs come bundled with different functions like pop-up blocking and password protection. Microsoft-approved programs are listed at http://www.microsoft.com/security/partners/default.asp. PC Magazine recently reviewed several of the best-sellers and picked Norton Antivirus 2004 ($49.95) from Symantec as best overall, based on ease of installation, reliable automatic updating, and its excellent history of protecting against new viruses. The purchase price includes a subscription for one year of virus definition updates.

Here are a few practices that all computer users should keep:

· Don't open unsolicited email

· Don't install software from unknown sources

· Don't ignore warnings from your anti-virus software

· Do back-up your system regularly

· Do regular virus scanning

· Do update anti-virus software

Network professionals whose responsibilities include security in an enterprise environment may be interested in the Microsoft Security Strategies Road show. This informational conference, co-sponsored by Avanade and Network Associates, will be presented at several locations, including Chicago in early March. The seminar is free of charge and is intended to bring the latest computer security information to attendees. For more information, see http://www.networkassociates.com, or to register, go to http://www.winnetmag.com/roadshows/computersecurity2004.