What’s a virus? What’s spyware? Both give you a headache and they are both referred as malware at times. Malware is a general term for any type of unwanted software that infects your computer.
The main difference between viruses and spyware is the way they are spread. A virus spreads software, usually malicious in nature, from computer to computer. Viruses can erase data, corrupt files, and cause usability problems on computers that they infect. Some indications that your computer might be infected may include your computer running more slowly than normal, stops responding periodically, or restarts very frequently.
Spyware, or sometimes referred as adware, collects information about you without appropriate notice and consent. Often times spyware is unknown and hidden from the user. Unlike viruses, spyware does not usually self-replicate. Spyware can come bundled with other software. When a user downloads a program and installs it, it may additionally install the spyware. Some spyware infects computers through security holes in web browsers. When a user navigates to a website which has malware on it the spyware uses the browser security hole to download and install the spyware. Symptoms include unwanted behavior (i.e. pop up advertisements) and degradation of system performance.
There are numerous ways to prevent malware from infecting your computer. Good commercial antivirus software is advisable over free antivirus software due to the frequency of virus definition updates. If you think you may have a virus, the Microsoft Windows Live OneCare safety scanner will scan your computer for viruses at no cost. Another good starting point is to make sure that your computer is up to date with the latest bug fixes for Microsoft Windows using Windows Updates.
For spyware, I believe Microsoft Windows Defender is the best software on the market and it is free. It will protect against spyware with real-time protection, detection, and removal.
It’s great to be protected with software against malicious malware software. However, your best protection is to be smart with what you do on the computer. We all get emails from websites, (i.e. Facebook notifying us a message a friend sent or Amazon.com notifying us about an order we’ve place, etc.) which include a link in the email. This may sound fine, however, it is not wise to click on the links in the email. You have to take precautions that it isn’t a malware email sent to you. Many times, someone who has your email in their address book is infected and you are being sent an email to trick you in clicking the link, further spreading the virus to all of your friends.
I am guilty of clicking links sent to me from emails just like everyone else else. Having been there, I wanted to spread the precaution (instead of a virus) on to you so you can be careful what you click!
Read Part II – Virus Meets Spyware
Tei Baishiki
Chief Technology Officer
tei.baishiki@rwnc.net
Tei, great post. As much as we use the computer for our business the last thing we need is to be slowed down by something we are not aware of. I spent an hour and half last week with Microsoft fixing a bug on my computer. Thanks for the reminder about the emails. I will be more cautious in the future.
Fixing malware is never fun and usually never a quick process. Especially for those who use computers as a part of their business, I am of the belief that you can never be too safe.
Backing up the data on your computer regularly must become a part of your routine to survive. When malware strikes, I almost always advise to format the computer and build up the operating system from scratch and install every application you need and copy data over from backups. It is a timely process but cleaning malware can take equally as long and you can avoid all of the headaches during the process.
Tei Baishiki
Chief Technology Officer
tei.baishiki@rwnc.net