Know anyone who has battled malware recently? Ask and you may find they don’t even know how it got onto their computer. This issue of getting malware on the computer and not being able to pinpoint the source is not uncommon though. I sometimes hear from readers that your computer had something on it and you have no idea how it got there. Let’s discuss a few of our more risky online activities and see if any of them might fit your situation.
Do you get email from people you don’t know? We still see lots of malware spread both as attachments in email and from links that send the visitor to dangerous sites. A recent email threat hails the reader with “Here you have” and contains a dangerous link. Most of us are already cautious about attachments from strangers but what about attachments from friends? Many of the newer viruses and other threats may start by infecting a friend’s computer or email account and then spreading to their network of friends. So the infected attachment may actually be in the email from your mother, boss or second-cousin. Be equally cautious about all types of attachments that seem suspicious, out of character or otherwise, unusual.
Do you connect your computer to wifi hotspots at hotels and airports as you travel? What about visiting other corporate offices or internet cafes? Anytime you connect to an unknown network, you risk picking up infections along the way.
What about connected devices like USB sticks and other memory cards? Could they have transferred malware to your computer? We hear of digital photo frames coming direct from the factory with malware on them. If your friend offers to share photos of a joint vacation by popping a thumb drive into your computer to transfer them, that might have been the moment of infection. Or a homework project your children collaborated on with a friend? Consider “in the cloud” collaboration tools or photo sharing sites in the future.
Do your kids share your computer or your home network? Do you allow visitors to use the home network or computer? All of those increase the chance that someone, sometime clicked a link they shouldn't have or visited a website hosting malware. We see so many threats that target kids in this way, like the fake High School Musical phishing attack or fake social networking security alerts. Make sure your kids know the basics of staying away from malware and can help police the family computer network when you’re not home.
Some malware is written in such a way as to appear like a virus alert, faking you into defeating your own security and perhaps purchasing scam antivirus software. If you are seeing alerts like that on your computer, here’s a helpful article to assist. Once on your system, the malware first aims for your security software, rendering it unable to load and help you defend yourself. At times like these, you’re going to need greater ammo to kill the malware invader, like our new free tool for anyone in this situation (not just our customers), Norton Power Eraser (I love that name!)
And what about the more than 10% of all webpages that host malware (according to a 2007 Google study)? Any web search you use might send you to a dangerous website where even a brief visit might put you at risk. I particularly love the Norton Internet Security feature called Norton Safe Web that works with popular search engines to alert you to known dangerous sites with easy to understand color codes in your search results. Green for safe, red for dangerous, it’s easy enough for us adults to understand!
Fighting cybercrime has become a virtual arms race, with the criminals creating new threats and slight variations at an ever increasingly rapid rate. If you read our annual Internet Safety Threat Report, or at least look at the chart showing growth in malware, you’ll see what I mean. There is always the possibility that you, unlucky you, were one of the first to bump into a new piece of malware. For that reason, it becomes more important every day that our software use multiple layers to protect you, including methods that don’t rely on the old-fashioned signature method. Rest assured, your Norton software is designed with the latest and most sophisticated crime-fighting technology, like Norton Insight and others.
Should malware disaster hit you, you can always contact Norton support for powerful assistance during times of computer crisis. Start here, where our Norton help page asks the question, “Think you have a virus?” and then offers links to helpful tools, services and informative articles. Note: our virus and spyware removal service is fee-based.