The problem of viruses

With more and more PC's being connected to the Internet on a permanent basis via broadband, and also networked together within your office or home the spread of viruses has become a major problem. If you connect any PC without any protection to the Internet via broadband it can become infected with viruses within a matter of hours. Quite a scary thought.

A virus infected PC may cause you a number of problems:

• It may infect your other PC's in your office or home
  
• It can delete or corrupt your data and documents
  
• It could damage Windows itself which may necessitate a repair or re-installation of the operating system
  
• Often viruses will search your PC for email addresses and then send itself to those people without your knowledge, thereby infecting your friends, customers, and suppliers machines with the same virus
  
• It may make your PC run slowly, which means every task you do takes longer
  

So how do you protect your PC?

• Ensure you have a reputable Anti Virus program installed and that it has not expired. If your PC is for home use (not business) there are Anti virus programs available totally free of charge, so there is no reason to not be protected (Speak to whoever does your computer support about the free Anti Virus programs for home use)
  
• Make sure your Anti Virus program is kept up to date with new virus definitions via the Internet.
  
• It should be configured to monitor your PC in the background continually looking for virus infections
  
• Scanning of all incoming and outgoing emails for virus infections should be enabled
  
• Perform regular scheduled scans of your hard disk drives at least once a week
  

So check your PC's, both home and office, and make sure they are protected from viruses. If you wish to obtain a Free Anti Virus program (for home use only) why not visit our website www.aslcomputerservices.co.uk and follow the link called " AVG Free Edition Anti Virus".
For business use, or home PC users that want more features and greater levels of protection follow the link called "AVG Anti Virus suite" on our website, or follow this link

Chris Moody
ASL Computer Services