Protect your computer from virus’, worms, malware

A lot of internet surfers are still irresponsible when it comes to making sure their computer is safe from viruses.  Blissfully unaware that by not protecting their own computer, they may also be putting everyone in their contact list at risk.

So now, let’s fast forward to the current virus threat - social networking sites…

Not only do we receive a lot of messages from friends within our favourite social networking sites, but, for some reason we also tend to accept and allow messages from unknown peeps (or, “potential new friends”) - where we wouldn’t normally if they were received via email.

New worms target Facebook and MySpace users

Read threat - Kaspersky worm virus warning:

“Unfortunately, users are very trusting of messages left by ‘friends’ on social networking sites.  So the likelihood of a user clicking on a link like this is very high”, says Alexander Gostev, Senior Virus Analyst at Kaspersky Lab.

Kaspersky Lab analysts are warning users that the worms are designed to upload additional malicious modules with other functionality via the Internet.

Although the worms are currently only infecting MySpace and Facebook users, the infected messages look like they contain links to video clips. When clicked on, it takes you to a false YouTube site, prompting you to supposedly download “the latest version of Flash Player”, which instead, is an executable file - the worm itself.

The sad, but true, final statement on the matter from Kaspersky:

“I’m sure that this is simply the first step, and that virus writers will continue to target these resources with increased intensity”, says Gostev.

Take action

So, please, don’t stick your head in the sand. Arm your computer with the necessary internet and virus security.

If you’re forever receiving “virus & scam warnings” via email suggesting you let all your friends in your address book know about it, be warned these are quite often false. If you’re unsure, always check a site like Hoax-slayer first - BEFORE clogging up all your friends’ email inboxes.

And - if you’re looking for more information on virus protection, why not search sites like CNET, PC World etc for anti-virus product reviews.

My personal tip is Kaspersky Internet Security, along with using Firefox 3 as your browser for better protection.

Keep yourselves clean now

Did you just “Poke Me”?!

When there is so much hype on the social networking scene, many are already feeling overwhelmed and social network fatigued.

Take for example this list - Top 10 Social Network Annoyances. Some of these sound very familiar.

I’m sure we could probably all think of a few more as well..?

(and like my previous post on the future of social networking notes - there’s so much more to come)

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