| Viruses, Worms and Trojan Horses (View Top Ten Threats) |
|
||||
|
Viruses and worms are malicious computer programs designed to spread from computer to computer. Viruses and worms can damage your computer, destroy your data, make your computer crash or become slow and hard to use. They can also degrade the performance of your internet connection and create problems for our network equipment and email servers. A trojan horse is a program that claims to do one thing, but does something malicious instead. For example, a trojan horse may claim to rid your computer of spyware but actually install spyware on your computer instead! Trojan horses are often designed to secretly reside on your computer and do such things as log your keystrokes, steal your private information, allow your computer to be remotely controlled and force your computer to send out unsolicited commercial email (SPAM) to other users.
A virus can infect your computer when you open an infected e-mail attachment or when you download and install infected programs on your computer. A worm can infect your machine if you have not patched your computer to fix known security vulnerabilities. Trojan horses do not replicate themselves. They can sometimes be installed by a virus, but are often installed by unsuspecting users who think they are installing one thing (such as a game) but are really installing a program that does something malicious instead.
You can determine if you are infected and prevent future infections by installing and running a virus scanner. The virus software should be configured to check for updates daily. If you do not have a virus scanner, see the links below for a list of free tools and scanners.
Viruses, trojans and worms make it possible for malicious users to steal private data that resides on your computer such as banking or credit card information, passwords and account information. Intruders may use your computer to conduct criminal activities and harm other computers. If your computer is connected to the Internet, you should always have updated virus protection installed. If Coastal Communications detects that your computer is transmitting viruses, worms or has a trojan that is allowing, for example, a spammer to abuse your computer and our network to send out spam, it is possible that your Internet connection will be disabled until you can confirm that you are able to fix the problem by installing a virus scanner, cleaning and updating your computer.
There are some wonderful, free tools available to help you keep your computer free of unwanted infections.
There are many commercial virus scanners available. Here is a list of some of the more popular ones:
|
|||||
What are computer viruses, worms and trojan horses?
Questions or comments? Contact our webmaster.