Virus, Trojan, Spyware, Worm, Malware, Addware, Spam – What the difference and which should I be worried about. Well are a potential risk to your computer, an infection of any kind is something to worry about. As the old saying goes “Prevention is better than cure” it is much better to try and stop anything nasty getting into your computer, than to try and clean it up afterwards.

What is a:

 

Virus – A program that it looking to infect a computer and pass its self along to other computers. Usually trying to protect its self by damaging Windows and stopping virus scanners.

 

Trojan – A program that contains something it shouldn’t, usually is second program that spy’s on your computer or installs a virus.

 

Spyware – A program that it trying to gather information especially password and send them out via the internet to the hacker. Usually looks for banking information or secure login.

 

Worm – A newer type of Virus – it usually tries to get the computer to do other things like sending emails or to connect 100’s of time to a web site in the hope that if enough computer try to access a web site all at the same time it will get the web site to crash. Worms are very good at hiding and evading virus scanners.


Malware – Very similar to a Virus or Worm – usually try to do as much damage to windows as it can so that other virus can access the computer, the most usual form of malware is a fake virus scanner.


Addware – this tries to install popup adverts on the computer and usually change the home page to its own web site, can also add averts onto outgoing emails.


Spam – Junk email, this is less of a risk than other items listed here, but still a nuisance and a possible rick of being taking to an infected web site.

 

(The above descriptions are a simplified explanation to serve as a guide only).

 

What can you do to protect your computer.

  1. Install a good virus scanner and keep it up to date.
  2. Install a good anti mal ware scanner and do regular scans.
  3. Make sure Windows is up to date using Microsoft/Windows update.
  4. Make sure your software that uses the internet like Firefox, Chrome, Java, Adobe flash and reader are all up to date.

Some Free Software that will help you to say safe.

 

Anti Virus Software

AVG – http://free.avg.com (Recommended)

Avast – http://www.avast.com

Avira – http://www.avira.com


Anti Malware – (Trojan, Spyware, Worm, Malware, Addware)

Anti Malware Bytes – http://www.malwarebytes.org/ (Recommended)

Ad-aware – http://www.lavasoft.com

Spybot SD – http://www.spybot.com


Anti Spam

Spam Fighter - http://www.spamfighter.com (Recommended)

BullGuard Antispam - http://www.bullguard.com


Please note you should only install ONE item from each category, install more than one will cause your computer to slow down and may cause it to crash. You should also uninstall old or out of date security software from your computer before installing the new software.


If you need help or have any questions or think you may have an infection on your computer please give me a call or send me an email for FREE advice. Bruce@mirax.org or Telephone 05 61 60 84 23.


Bruce Taylor.