Viruses
The biggest problem of internet use today are viruses and the less
commonly known risk of Spyware & Adware.
Viruses are programs that can infect your computer in different ways.
The most common way is via email attachments. They arrive in an email
with a subject line that will try to attract your interest and lead to
you running the
attached file which then infects your computer.
At best, some viruses are funny and do no damage at all. At worst,
they can destroy your hard drive's data and totally crash your system
but not before sending itself to every email address that it finds
listed in your computer files.
Other variants such as Trojan Horses may find their way onto your
machine by way of malicious scripts. Certain websites use different
means of running scripts that attempt to access your computer when you
visit their websites. These are often found on pornography sites or
illegal software download sites.
Another related problem that has been highlighted in the Pembrokeshire
press in particular recently is the dreaded premium rate diallers that
find their way onto your machine.
A lot of people, totally innocently, click buttons on pop up screens
to say no to a service and are actually unwittingly clicking to give
permission for a premium rate dialup program to be installed on their
computer. Some can actually replace the dialup number on your regular
ISP software such as AOL or Freeserve so you will not even notice any
strange screens appearing when it is dialling up. The first you will
know about it is when you receive your next phone bill which may be
hundreds or even thousands of pounds!
For information about the latest virus threats and how to combat them
visit
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter
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