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Sunday September 05, 2010

Top Three Reasons Why Your Antivirus Software Does Not Always Protect Your Computer From Virus Infections

The truth is out there.

And here it is:

There is no such thing as an antivirus program which will protect your computer from any and all virus and spyware infections.

Whether you run Norton, McAfee, AVG, Microsoft Security Essentials, Windows Defender, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, Kaspersky, Firewalls, Phishing Filters, Malicious Web Site Detection, and more… in fact, it does not matter what you use, or how many products you use, your computer may still get a virus infection on it.

“Today I’m going to spend the entire day trying to get my computer infected with viruses just to see how good my antivirus program really is.” 

While it’s common sense that most computer users don’t purposely put their antivirus software to the test, often they do invite viruses onto their computer without trying to. Here are the top three reasons why this phenomenon occurs:

  1. Your computer is lacking security updates. This one is huge, and very, very common. If your antivirus program itself is out of date, it will not even have a chance to protect you from the latest and greatest viruses out there. However, if your operating system (i.e. Windows) itself is not current with security updates, thenJust by being on the internet you will get infected without having to do anything else at all.

    After all, without security updates, you are running a computer system with dozens of known security holes left wide open for viruses to get in through. This is basically like physically removing all the doors from your home and leaving your doorways wide open.
     
  2. Your computer allows you to install software. At the time of writing this, the current classes of newer viruses are all about tricking you, the computer user, into installing something on your computer. It may be in the form of an email attachment, activex control, media player codec or plugin, and more.The general idea is that in order to do what you are trying to do or view the content you are looking for, you must install something additional into your computer.

    While not all of these types of things are fundamentally bad, the vast majority of them are. Once you load the extra component into your web browser, run the email attachment, acquire the license, download the codec or install the free software which looks so great, that is the moment at which the infection begins and your computer is compromised. Since your computer allows you to install software in a wide variety of ways, these are also all ways viruses can get into your computer, essentially overriding your antivirus program. So you have to be careful what you install. Here’s an analogy which kind of works: you want to be able to cut down trees, however, if you are going to cut down a tree, make sure to do the cuts with the chainsaw properly so the tree does not fall on you.
     

  3. You Panicked. At the moment a virus infection *seemed* to present itself on your computer, you started to sweat, adrenaline started pumping, a bunch of explicatives went racing through your head, and you became instantly compliant:YES, NO, MAYBE, I don’t know what to do I just don’t want a virus on my computer!

    In this moment, you clicked on the virus presenting itself, which appeared authentic enough, and upon clicking on it you were infected. More and more, virus writers are getting crafty to trick you into doing exactly what you don’t want to do by making you believe that what exists is opposite of reality, and the outcome of your compliance will be the opposite of what it really ends up being. Let me explain.

    Typically, when something first pops up on your computer saying you are infected, you are NOT actually infected YET, but once you click on it then you are, even if you click on NO. Therefore, you thought your computer was infected when it wasn’t. And then your computer actually became infected when you were trying to do what was required to clean the non-existant infections.

    Yes, it’s somewhat complicated. This would be something like if your child who is allergic to adrenaline faked a really bad asthma attack, so you called 911, and when they arrived, they gave your child an adrenaline shot (a common treatment for a really bad asthma attack) which then created an allergic reaction-induced really bad asthma attack.

    Anyway, these viruses are referred to as rogue or fake antivirus programs, or viruses disguised as virus removal programs. There are tens of thousands of them and counting. And here’s another tip: They are after your money, so don’t give them your payment information, and if you did already, deactivate that card and get a new number right away.

So now you know why and how it usually happens. You thought your computer was protected from viruses but really it was not. After all, isn’t that what the antivirus program was on there for in the first place? Just simply running a good antivirus program is not enough to prevent all infections, however, it is good internet ’street smarts’ and highly recommended.

It’s also valuable to note that some viruses are just so new that your antivirus program has not yet had an update available that can deal with it properly, but this is not a major cause of virus infections as compared with the items mentioned above.

Finally, keep in mind that anyone sitting at your computer could be unknowingly inviting viruses onto your computer in the manner described above, so be careful also about who you let use you computer and what they are doing.

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February 1, 2010 | Filed Under Milwaukee Computer Repair, Tony's Tips and Tricks, Vliet Street Computer Shop | 1 Comment