Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Tom DiFrancesca: Internet Safari
Worms, I wish I were talking about the wiggly kind that we take fishin’ with us, but no, I am writing about the Internet type today.
The “Sasser Worm” started off by plaguing computers in Taiwan last weekend, and then with a fury, it starting striking computers in North America on Monday morning. By mid-week, millions of personal and work computers had been stricken.
The primary result of a computer being “contaminated” with the new worm virus is that the computer will just keep re-booting itself. No real damage is done to the computer, nor to the files and programs stored on it.
The Google search engine defines an Internet Worm as “a self-replicating program.” It also reports that the first Internet Worm program was unleashed in 1988, and almost brought the entire Internet down. To obtain that information, I went to google.com, and typed in “Definition: Internet Worm,” — I didn’t use the quotation marks though. You can use that same procedure to look-up just about any word or phrase that exists.
Google is grand “ain’t” it?
“Windows Update” — it’s a very useful tool and it should be used often, more than most folks care to do though. People who use Windows-based computers — who ignore my suggestion to run “Windows Update” — even weekly, seem to encounter many more worms, viruses and additional calamities than others do. Point in case, Microsoft released the patch that prevented the “Sasser Worm” from invading a Windows based computer on April 13th, which was a good two weeks before the worm began its invasion. The folks who I’ve spoken with, whose computers have been attacked, had not run a recent update. I can’t tell you how many people I speak with, who although they are very active on the Internet, have “24/7” connections to broadband access, and still don’t use firewalls or anti-virus programs. They are sitting ducks, about to be shot, plucked and eaten.
Although there are decent online anti-virus scanners available for free, such as the one at http://www.pandasoftware.com, there is absolutely no excuse for not purchasing and installing a full-fledged, licensed, fully armed copy of a “real” anti-virus program. Same thing goes for a personal firewall. By using a firewall the computer operator controls what goes in and out of a computer. Personally, I use a free firewall program offered by Sygate and it works very well. Here is the URL to access the download page directly: smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm Sorry that the address is a little long, but going to the main Web site, and trying to find the link for the free edition of the software can be a little tricky. Computer security, that folks, is the primary topic — today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life, if you plan on using the Internet.
Even as security/protection software and technology improve, so will the skills of all of the hackers and crackers. Remain alert, use a firewall, use an anti-virus program, turn off your computer if you aren’t going to use it for a while, use a “pop-up” stopping program and be very careful about the programs that you download and install.
I told my wife Miss Susie Q the other night that a person has to keep their computer tighter than the security at Ft. Knox.
Tom DiFrancesca III is a freelance columnist and a resident of Clovis. He can be reached at:
or
