Do not open ANY email attachments even if the email is from someone you know. Viruses can infect computers and send out copies of itself to people in the infected system's address book. Some viruses will send copies of itself, making it look like the email came from an address taken from the infected computer's address book. This means that the person in the "FROM" field is not the one with the infection.

Do not use Microsoft Internet Explorer unless absolutely necessary. Web pages that use Active X controls can load programs (possible viruses) onto your computer without your knowledge. Mozilla Firefox does not recognize Active X controls and will keep you safe from this kind of infection. Web pages that use Active X controls will not display properly, if at all, using Mozilla Firefox. If you are absolutely sure that the web site you are wanting to go to is legitimate, for example your Bank's web site, go ahead and use Internet Explorer if the page does not display correctly in Mozilla Firefox. DO NOT use Internet Explorer to search the web using a search engine like Google or Yahoo. You do not know what web pages are behind the links in the search results and you run a very good chance of being infected.

Keep Windows up to date. Microsoft is constantly patching security holes in Windows. As soon as a Windows Update is announced, malicious hackers take the update file apart, which now acts as a road map helping them to find the security hole Microsoft is patching. They now can easily infect any system that has not been updated.

Keep your virus scanner and Spyware scanners up to date and run the scans weekly.

The Virus Scanner I use: The Free version of AVG (scroll to the bottom of the page to find the link).
Spyware Scanners I run once a week: Go to http://www.download.com and search for Ad Aware, and Spybot Search and Destroy.

If you have a high speed internet connection like DSL or CABLE, get a router. Routers cost around $70 and act as a firewall (NAT network address translation) and help keep hacker out of your system. Routers are designed to share a single internet connection with multiple computers, but because of their ability to protect your computer I have installed routers for many of my clients who only have a single computer.

If your computer is used for business or has important data on it, do not let other people use the computer, especially children and teenagers. Many viruses and Spyware hide on web sites and in free programs targeted at younger people. Younger people do not take the time to think about the implications of their online actions.

I suspect that a lot of viruses and Spyware can come in through AOL Instant messenger and other instant messenging (chat) clients. I have done some experimentation with a product called Trillian which is free, but it sometimes will not work with AOL Instant Messenger accounts. Be sure to never accept a file transfer from anyone while instant messaging.

Do not respond to any unsolicited email, even if it has an UNSUBSCRIBE link. The best way to tell a SPAMMER that you are a real person with a real email address is to respond to them. They will now sell your email address to other SPAMMERS.

Contact me if you have questions or would like more details.

Mike The Computer Guy
650-728-7918
tech@mikecomputerguy.com