Many of you would have received our earlier alert for the W32.Sobig C virus and since then we have seen quite a few occurrences of the W32.Bugbear virus. The latest virus to attack is another mutation and is called the W32.Sobig E So if you need help with these or any other virus, please call us onа(03 667 0088) and we'll get your anti-virus prescription refilled.
>> Adware and Spyware - What are they and how do they affect me?
Adware is a name given to software whose main reason for being seems to be to annoy computer users. It could be seen as the newest form of cold call telephone marketing and it is reaching epidemic proportions. It works by downloading ads to your PC when you're connected to the internet, which slows things down and unless you are actually interested in what is being advertised, is a waste of your time and computer resources. Worse still is that some Adware products have actually been found to be a two way street. i.e. not only are they giving you the ad, but you are also unknowingly sending information back up the link!
Spyware on the other hand is sneakier still. Basically it is designed to get into your computer and collect information from all sorts of areas that it has no right to be. This data may then be used to gain an edge for advertising purposes. But how did it get into my machine in the first place you ask, well it was probably downloaded in a hidden application from the internet, the interesting thing is that you may not even know that one is running on your machine right now! Spyware can exist as an independent program running unknown in the background of your PC, this means that it can monitor and report any function of what you are doing with your computer including what software you're running, which web sites you visit, and in fact anything about how you use the computer. No wonder it's called Spyware.
The fact that these programs may be running on your machine could explain strange occurrences such as unexplained 'illegal operations', system crashes and general go-slows. The problem is that even if you suspect that you may have some of this software running on your machine it can still be very hard to find or remove it.