We immediately made a virus scan of
the whole computer with all of its files, (thousands of them), and
found that some thirty or more files were infected with more than
one strain of virus. The anti-virus program was able to cure all but
one file which we had to destroy by deleting it.
We were very lucky. We could have
been infected by some very mean and nasty destructive viruses, but
now, as long as we keep our Virus Protection program data files up
to date and run regular virus scan routines, we should be ok.
The major question that immediately comes
to mind is "How did we get infected?" We could have opened
the wrong file on some email message, or a floppy disk could have
been the culprit. We really didn't think too much about hackers
trying to inject a virus in our machine.
Heck, we aren't on line that much; our dial-up connection is on
only when we are on the net or sending e-mail, and besides,
who would want to hack us since we are just a private
individual family with no big corporate type data and few personal
secrets.
The McAfee site also offered a
Personal
Firewall (*), so while we were
there to get the anti-virus program, we purchased their Firewall
software… also downloadable.
What a surprise was in store for us!
And everyone who has a Personal Firewall program has no doubt been
as astounded as we were. The program alerts us every time a hacker,
or someone tries to get into our machine through different
ports in our software. We never even knew that so many ports existed.
There seems to be a bunch of them and dozens of attempts to
compromise them.
The Firewall protection allows us to ban
the sources of these attacks and report them to the 'hacker
police' associated with the McAfee organization. Sometimes these
penetration attempts come rapid-fire, one after another. Other times
they are quite random over an extended period of time. But one gets
the feeling that there is something out there just waiting to
pounce as soon as we go on-line.
We have two computers on line at home.
Before the second one became infected, we quickly installed Symantec
virus protection on it (because we had bought it sometime ago but
never got around to installing it). We immediately registered it and
downloaded all of the current virus data files and ran a virus
check. Then we bought and downloaded the McAfee Personal Firewall
for that machine, too.
By sheer coincidence, while we were struggling with our home
problem, our internet dedicated machines at work became infected for
the first time in five years, but with an entirely different strain
of virus. After downloading the latest data files, we were able to
disinfect those computers, too.
We also installed the McAfee Firewall. And
have since added anti-Trojan Horse protection, DSL with its included
firewall and virus protection, and
we never, ever open
anyone's personal floppies and unfamiliar email unless we scan them first!
There is a moral to this little story. You
can be bitten by one of these computer virus bugs, too, and the
chances of this happening are increasing all of the time. There are
reportedly more than 100,000 virus strains lurking 'out
there'.
We don't know why there are people 'out
there' who get pleasure from being malicious, juvenile, criminal,
etc., but they are there… and we have learned that they are trying
to get into our machines from hidden sites all over the world.
SO, I am going to shout this - IF
YOU DON'T HAVE VIRUS PROTECTION SOFTWARE AND A FIREWALL ON YOUR
COMPUTERS, GET THEM AND INSTALL THEM NOW!
It really doesn't matter whose product you
use. McAfee virus and Firewall protection, Symantec, AVG, or who ever. You can download these
programs right from the internet if you need the protection
RIGHT NOW... or get the software as a CD from a local software
store,
(*)What's a Firewall?
more info here
