Services Virus Infestation Tips

 

First a little about viruses! The probability of necessary PC repair diminishes if viruses are not allowed in your computer; to do its damage a virus must be permitted to execute code and write to memory.

 

Therefore, never click on links in Emails that you do not know where lead. Clicking is giving permission to come into your PC. An E-mail link can allow a remote website to download dozens of viruses, in a matter of milliseconds.

 

Also, don’t be conned by pop-ups. If a pop-up says you are infested and you are behind a firewall, (more on firewalls later,) and, your PC is running an updated Anti-virus.

 

[DO NOT,] click anywhere on the pop-up. It could be possible for a link to a remote site to be anywhere on the pop-up.Pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL immediately opens Windows Task Manager.

 

Then you should left click on the, ‘Applications Tab,’ and, one at a time highlight each opened browser window then left click the, ‘End Task Button.’ This procedure is safe.

 

Now you should scan your PC.

The hiding of file extensions is another way malicious code gets you to click on a virus, fooling you into thinking it's a document or image(example:Image.jpg.exe).

 

By default Windows XP will hide the (.exe,) in the example. You always should be able to view the extensions of all files on your system.

 

To view extensions, left click start, left click on ‘My Computer,’ left click the ‘Tools Menu’. Then click the ‘Folder Options Tab’. In the window that appears, left click the ‘View Tab’.

 

Now in the ‘Advanced Settings Box, scroll down to, ‘Hide extensions for known file types,’ and, remove the checkmark. Click the 'Apply to All Folders' button near the top. Now click the 'OK'.

 

There are two types of Viruses, based on their behavior: Nonresident viruses and Resident viruses: I am not going to talk much about these.

 

I will say though, nonresident viruses immediately search for other hosts that can be infected, effectively hogging all resources. http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/reference/striker.pdf

 

And, a resident virus does not search for hosts when started, but instead, loads itself into memory and using different kinds of deception tries to avoid detection.

 

A resident virus is committed to staying undetected. One way it does is by tricking the anti-virus program, or, by killing the tasks associated with anti-virus.

 

The first technique that is a serious threat to virus scanners is a Polymorphic virus, because, it infects files with an encrypted copy of itself.

 

It then decodes, and, ultimately modifies, (changes the signature,) on each infection, making it very difficult to detect using virus signatures.

 

Now a little about firewalls! Firewalls can be either software or hardware. The main things to know about firewalls are that they watch ports and prevent access to the pc and also, notify the user of these attempts.