Virus DownloadsBack To Technology Home
For Virus Software and Updates visit these sites:
www.sophos.com,
www.mcafee.com,
www.norton.com, and
www.F-Secure.com.
Here are a few guidelines that might help your company stay virus free As well as keeping your anti-virus software up to date
there are other ways in which you can reduce the
chances of virus infection inside your company. Below we
list some of the guidelines you might like to consider for safer
computing in your organization.
1. Stop using DOCs. Instead
use pure Rich Text Format for your Word documents,
because that doesn't support the macro language. There is a caveat
to this advice. Some macro viruses intercept File SaveAs RTF and save a file with a .RTF extension which actually
contains a DOC format file! So it needs to be
true Rich Text Format. Tell the people that you deal with
that you would rather they sent you RTF or CSV files rather than DOC
or XLS.
2. Change your CMOS bootup
sequence so that rather booting from drive A: if
you leave a floppy in your machine, you boot by default from drive
C: instead. This should stop all pure boot
sector viruses (like Form, CMOS4, AntiCMOS,
Monkey, etc) from infecting you. If you do occasionally need to
boot from a floppy disk the CMOS can be quickly switched back.
3. Don't run/open
unsolicited executables/documents/spreadsheets/etc. Adopt
a paranoid attitude, if you don't know something to be virus-free assume it is not virus-free. Have a strict policy in
your organization that downloading executables
and documents from the net is not acceptable, and
that anything that runs in your organization has to be virus-checked
and approved first. Indeed, your staff should ask
themselves "Do I really need that
screensaver or joke program to do my work?". If they don't actually need it, don't let them have it!
4. You might
benefit from a hoax policy you could deploy amongst your staff. Consider a hoax policy like this:
"You
shall not forward any virus warnings of any kind to anyone other
than <insert name of the department or staff member who looks
after anti-virus issues>. It doesn't matter if the virus warnings have come from an anti-virus vendor or been confirmed
by any large computer company or your best
friend. All virus warnings should be sent to
<insert name>, and <insert name> alone. It is <insert name>'s job to send round all virus warnings, and a
virus warning which comes from any other source
should be ignored."
5. If you don't need Windows
Scripting Host, turn it off. Enter Start/Settings/Control
Panel. Open Add/Remove Programs. Choose the Windows
Setup tab. Double-click on "Accessories" and make sure Windows Scripting Host is deselected (no checkmark).
6.
If you use floppy disks
write-protect them before inserting them into other users'
computers.
7. Keep an eye on
Microsoft's security bulletins. These can warn of new security
loopholes and issues with Microsoft's software.
6. Subscribe to an emailalert service that warns you about new, in-the-wild, viruses.
7. Make regular backups of your important work and data, and check that the backups
were successful.
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