With the help of the Internet, computer viruses are now spreading at the speed of light. In a matter of hours, the "Love Bug" virus had spread itself to millions of PCs around the world, causing billions of dollars of damage. Over the next several days, numerous copy cat viruses were discovered. Why and how is this happening? Unfortunately, these e-mail viruses are extremely easy to write, and make use of the Internet to spread themselves. Stopping these viruses requires that companies have a virus policy in place and take weekly actions to protect their machines and data.
Below is a quick checklist of steps companies can take to minimize the effects of virus attacks:
- Have anti-virus software running on every PC, laptop, server, and employee home PC in your company.
- Perform regular virus scans and updates on your PC.
- Ask vendors that send you e-mail and files if they have an anti-virus policy in effect.
- Have a written company anti-virus policy and make it easily accessible to employees.
- Educate employees about viruses, warning signs, e-mail dangers, and precautionary measures.
- Know what to do in the event of a virus attack. By acting quickly, costly damage can be avoided.
Keeping your PCs virus free is an active measure. You must make sure that each and every PC in your company has its virus software running and has updated virus patterns. Patterns are lists of viruses your anti-virus software can detect. Unless you consistently update these patterns (at least once per week), you will not be able to detect new and dangerous viruses. Also, you must scan your hard drives at least once per week to ensure that a virus did not sneak onto your PC while it could not be detected by your pattern file. These procedures take only seconds per week, and could save your company hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars. It also helps to protect everyone that you communicate with electronically.
Do not assume that your virus scanner is running or that your pattern file is updated. Many people install their anti-virus software and never perform maintenance on the software. Often, their patterns are several months old, and unable to detect thousands of viruses. (There are currently almost 50,000 of them!)
Please call Excalibur Technology if you would like help setting up a virus protection plan, training your staff, or a monthly update service and evaluation.
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