[jambutty]

Until recently computer viruses were spread via emails, downloads and rogue software but now the ‘kiddies’ have developed a way of spreading viruses via web sites and you or rather your computer can get infected just by visiting the site. So we can look forward to, if that’s the right expression, to more and more web sites being infected. Now that it has been shown to happen more and more ‘kiddies’ will be doing it.

The latest pest is a Trojan with many variations but they all ‘read’ and report your key strokes. Not too much of a problem unless you happen to do a bit of Internet banking or subscribe to the many on-line cash processors like PayPal or E-Gold or go surfing for cash.

The best way to protect your machine is to make sure that you have all the latest Security Patches from Microsoft. Then get yourself a decent Firewall like Zone Alarm. The basic version, which is the same as the Pro version without some whistles and bells and is free to download from http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/home.jsp

Antivirus software from http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php is also free and you get regular, sometimes daily updates also for free. Just a reminder that any anti-virus software is only as good as the last update.

It would be helpful if you could read your emails before you download them to your machine and thus get rid of anything suspicious before it even gets to your computer. Get MailWasher from http://www.mailwasher.net/ for free and you can.

To help in your fight against unwanted stuff being sneaked onto your computer you can get AdAware from http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ and this will get rid of any Spyware that you have. And believe me you will have.

Trojan Remover costs $25 but it will help to protect your machine although it isn’t vital http://www.networkingfiles.com/AntiVirus/Trojanremover.htm