What are the steps one should take to avoid virus attacks?

22 Jun Know How to Avoid Computer Virus Attacks

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22 Jun Know How to Avoid Computer Virus Attacks
Keeping Your Computer Free from Virus Attacks!
Rules To Avoid Computer Virus Attacks!
Anti-Virus Software or Anti-Helpful Software?
Easily Avoid Computer Virus Attacks
What are the steps to deal with virus?
What are the three steps required to protect your computer from virus attack?
What precautions should you take to protect your computer from a virus Class 7?

Keeping Your Computer Free from Virus Attacks!

The last few years have seen a rather large increase in virus attacks. You may be aware of this fact and have taken steps to inform yourself to recognize these attacks. If so, then great as you won’t be as vulnerable as your typical “uneducated” user might be. If not, then educating yourself now can be imperative to the safety of your computer and it’s data.

Computer viruses can be very expensive to resolve. Not only can the repair time be extensive, so can the damages. A major loss in your data should be expected. And in today’s world, living without a computer is akin to living without a limb, it just does not work. By staying abreast of the signs to look for, you will be staying one step ahead of a virus attack on your computer.

As an IT company, we want to help educate all technology users of the dangers computer virus’ can have on a system, which is why we put together some tips and advice on preventing a computer virus.

Rules To Avoid Computer Virus Attacks!

So to begin with, here is what you could call the first line of defense in keeping your computer clean of viruses.

Do Not browse websites that you don’t trust. If you don’t know it – don’t click it
Do Not open emails from anyone you don’t recognize
Do Not allow people to use your computer without your knowledge
Do Not download and run unrecognized software, especially files with an .exe extension

Ultimately, YOU are the first line of defense in keeping your computer clean of viruses.

Anti-Virus Software or Anti-Helpful Software?

Virus software is getting cleverer as the years roll. We are at a point where users are presented screens that resemble common used antivirus software. These screens are created by a user’s Internet Browser which resembles either websites or antivirus software for Windows. They will usually ask the user to download the latest antivirus software or even alert that a computer virus has already taken over and needs to be cleaned up. If the user clicks on any of the options presented by the fake this antivirus, the program downloads the actual virus or spyware code, thus infecting the computer and rendering it useless in many cases

Easily Avoid Computer Virus Attacks

Being an informed user will help you keep your computer clean of any virus attacks. One way is to stay familiar with the real antivirus software or protection installed on the PC. Users will either see either a Symantec Antivirus product or a Microsoft Security Essentials antivirus on their machines. Other common antivirus programs include:

Avast
McAfee
Antivirus
AVG Antivirus
Kapersky
Trend Micro Security

If you know your computer is already being protected than you will know those pop-ups saying the computer is infected is a lie.

Keep in mind that most antivirus software will just display a simple screen letting you know that they have blocked a possible infection and let you decide what to do with it. Real anti-virus pop-up windows won’t usually display the dramatic messages displayed by fake antivirus software. For example:
“Your computer is at risk and has been infected; download this software now to fix it”.

The next time you are browsing the web and suddenly receive pop ups displaying some sort of Antivirus Dashboard that starts “scanning” for infected files or prompts you to download Antivirus Software, you now know this is a fake scan. Also keep in mind, these pages would not have access to your computer, so how would they even know if your computer is infected or not!?

If you think your computer might be infected or you downloaded something that may have been malicious, immediately stop using the computer and turn it off. If this happens you should contact a reliable IT service to take a look and clean any viruses that may be running loose on your PC.

For several days this past spring, the news story was so big it beat out coverage of President Trump: A vicious virus had wrested control of some 200,000 computers across 150 countries in one of the worst international cyberattacks ever. It blocked all access to files unless the computer’s owner paid a ransom using bitcoins, the online currency that is largely untraceable. As often happens, victims who did pony up did not get the key to unlock their files and lost both their money and their data.

The episode should have caused some 200,000 faces to blush. Two months earlier, Microsoft had issued a routine update to the Windows operating system that included code that would have blocked the so-called WannaCry virus. If computer owners had downloaded the upgrade, they would have been spared.

Talk about learning a lesson the hard way! For the rest of us, the WannaCry episode is a terrific reminder to follow the seven tried-and-true rules of protecting a computer from outside attacks.

1. Buy legitimate software, and register it.

Only versions of Windows that were bought from a licensed retailer and registered with Microsoft could receive the software upgrade that blocked WannaCry. One reason so many computers outside the United States were hit, experts believe, is that they were running bootleg or borrowed versions of Windows.

2. Make sure your software is up to date.

Set your system to automatically download and install updates from trusted software providers.

3. Don’t click on links or open attachments from email addresses you don’t know.

One of the biggest sources of malware is fraudulent emails, called spam; seeking info from you via spam is called phishing. Delete unsolicited emails from unfamiliar people or companies no matter how friendly they appear.

4. Instantly leave websites you’ve been routed to without your consent.

And when on the site, don’t click on anything; doing so could trigger a malware download to your PC.

5. Have a pop-up blocker running on your web browser.

That keeps potentially dangerous ads from appearing on your screen. Google Chrome, Firefox and Microsoft Edge include pop-up blockers.

6. Use a reputable antivirus program, and always keep it updated.

Almost immediately after WannaCry appeared, major antivirus vendors released updates to protect their users.

7. Regularly back up your important files to an external drive or a remote storage service.

The easiest way to recover from any malware attack is to restore a recent backup of your data.