We’ve all had them at one point or another, and they’re so easy to get hold of. When you do get them, they can be a nightmare to remove and could destroy months, years or all your data.

What steps should you take to avoid them completely?

1. Backup your data regularly and often. If you can’t afford to lose a full day’s worth of data, then arrange some automated backup procedures to go on throughout the day. Don’t know how? Give me a call and I’ll put you in touch with a backup and IT security specialist
2. Install an antivirus. Personally, I don’t recommend the commercial ones, Norton tends to slow my machine right down and McAfee has let virus’s through. The best anti-virus I have ever used is AVG (http://free.grisoft.com/) It’s free for personal use (and a small fee for business) but has never let me down in the years of use.
3. Don’t download programs from the internet. Even trusted sites can be hacked discretely.
4. Don’t run software from free magazine CD’s. Though checked, they can be replaced with malicious code between the distributor and the store.
5. Don’t run programs or open attachments in emails unless you know EXACTLY what is in them. If friends send you pictures, ask them to send them as images not as ZIP files. DEFINITELY AVOID FILES ENDING WITH .EXE, .BAT, .COM, .SCR even if embedded within a ZIP file.
6. When opening files downloaded or unzipped. Right click the file and force a virus check. Usually this is done automatically but this is just to make sure.
7. When you run a program from any of these sources, if nothing seems to happen, or the file disappears, consult your IT specialist as soon as possible.

Always keep your virus scan updated, most do this automatically, do not disable it.

Always allow scheduled full system scans to run. If they set to an awkward time, change it to something more helpful, again don’t disable it.

If you follow all of the above steps, you too should be happy and virus-free.