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Imagine it - you sit down to your computer one day after downloading a file from the Internet, you open the file and all of a sudden your screen goes blank as the hard-drive goes into overtime and next thing you know, your PC dies a horrible death!

Why? Well, the chances are, you are an unfortunate victim of a computer virus.

There are thousands of know viruses for the PC and hundreds of known viruses for the MAC that are in transit over the Net. These viruses mainly consist of variants of the following:

Trojan Horses - programs that claim to perform a particular function but do something different - e.g. they could infect your computer with a virus or erase your files

Backdoor Trojans - programs that allow other computer users to remotely control your computer (i.e. hackers) via a LAN or the Internet

Worms - viruses that duplicate themselves and use programs such as email to spread. They can look within your email address book and send themselves to contacts stored

Macros - these use commands, or macros, embedded in other software to infect and spread to other files viewed by that software

Boot Sector Viruses - no longer very common, these used to infect a computer's startup program so that the virus would become active as soon as the computer started up

The good news is, as a computer user there are some steps you can take to protect your computer and files against attack from viruses.

1. Antivirus Software

The first step in protecting your computer from attack is to install AntiVirus Software. There are many software titles out there to choose from and at the end of the day, it is down to personal preference or recommendation by friends and family. Another consideration to bear in mind is whether to purchase software or obtain free software. Purchased software (i.e. Norton AntiVirus) will tend to have more functions and options than free titles. However, there are some very good free software titles on the net (i.e. Grisoft AVG). As a rule of thumb, unless you are prepared to purchase unlock keys, try to avoid Trial software, as these tend to get forgotten about and the user finds themself with no protection after a set number of days.

Most AntiVirus software these days does more than just scan your PC for known viruses (which are normally held within the programs Virus Database). These programs can scan Incoming and Outgoing email messages, scan downloaded files, constantly monitor your computer for any unauthorised file modification (as done by certain viruses) and

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