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Watch out for pesty computer viruses

Friday | October 19, 2001 | 9:02 pm  

Edi­tors note: This is one of sev­eral columns that I wrote for the Colum­bia Mis­sourian. They were orig­i­nally called Your Dig­i­tal World

Have you taken care of your computer’s health lately? Viruses can inflict vary­ing degrees of damage from send­ing out annoy­ing e-mails to wiping data off your hard drive.

Most viruses fall into one of the fol­low­ing three cat­e­gories: Viruses as pro­grams: These nasty bugs are what I call “old school” because they’ve been around the longest. They come in the form of a pro­gram, just like Microsoft Word or Soli­taire, only they are malicious.

They can do almost any­thing from wiping your hard drive to dis­play­ing annoy­ing mes­sages. They often will attach parts of them­selves to files so that when you send an account­ing report to your boss it’ll infect his com­puter. Their biggest lim­i­ta­tion is their method of infec­tion; an ini­tially clean com­puter must run the virus pro­gram or receive an infected file.

The Inter­net rev­o­lu­tion brought would-​be infec­tors who could send you the pro­gram via e-mail. Once you opened it, your com­puter was infected. Now, you don’t even have to click.

Viruses you can thank Microsoft for: As soft­ware pub­lish­ers began making pro­grams that would pro­tect your files, virus pro­gram­mers began taking advan­tage of macros, which are mini-​programs. For exam­ple, in Microsoft Word, I have a macro that auto­mat­i­cally types my name and stu­dent number and for­mats the page so I can type a report for class.

Microsoft made writ­ing these macros easier and expanded their capa­bil­i­ties. They weren’t trying to make the world easier for virus writ­ers, just as a base­ball bat wasn’t meant to be used against a victim by a criminal.

Macros can be used to do all the nasty things “old-school” viruses did. Worse, most pro­grams that use macros run them with­out you knowing.

Microsoft’s Out­look and Out­look Express are com­monly used as virus prop­a­ga­tors. Typ­i­cally, when the bug arrives buried within an e-mail it sends copies to every­one in your address book. As the so-​called “worm” repli­cates itself, server after server gets over­loaded with traf­fic. Sircam and Code Red are two recent noto­rius “worms.”

You can be a virus: I don’t know where they start, or who writes them, but some­where out there are thou­sands of use­less for­wards. These mes­sages often tell you that by for­ward­ing them on to so many people you’ll get paid, or it’ll send a protest to Microsoft or help feed starv­ing chil­dren, etc. They’re not true. When you for­ward them to every­one in your address book, you’re doing exactly what “worms” do.

Anti-​virus pro­grams can stop most types, includ­ing macro type viruses. If you already have an anti-​virus pro­gram, make sure to keep your virus def­i­n­i­tions up-​to-​date. This file tells the pro­gram what dig­i­tal clues to look for so that it can kill viruses. Check the program’s Web site or the help file to find out how to update the files, which can usu­ally be done over the Internet.

If you don’t have a pro­gram and you’re like me and don’t want to spend a lot, check out free AVG Anti-​Virus (www.​grisoft.com) or con­sult with your office’s tech­nol­ogy depart­ment. You may be able to get a copy of its soft­ware for your home computer.

Errata: For those like me who are enraged about the qual­ity of tech sup­port, (see the Oct. 5 column), you’ll be even more enraged to know that Syman­tec and McAf­fee, makers of two of the most pop­u­lar anti-​virus soft­ware pro­grams, have announced they’re dis­con­tin­u­ing free tele­phone tech sup­port. Even more insid­i­ous, Symantec’s phone line tells you it won’t charge your credit card if the prob­lem you have is an admit­ted defect in the prod­uct. So if they never admit any defects…? Don’t worry, I’ll answer your e-mails for free.

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