Worms are programs that propagate themselves across networks, often then attaching themselves to one of its normal activities and thereby infecting it so that it can further spread. Many recent worms further compromise their hosts by creating full access shares that can then be exploited by other computers or through a secondary attack.

Almost all worms are categorized as viruses and you should be protected if you have antiviral software running that is being updated regularly. If you think that you do not, please see my article on viruses and another on how to get free antiviral software.

Trojans and Spyware are programs which collect information about your computer activities and then send that information to another. The information collected may be little more than what sites you visited on the Internet or it could be part of a deliberate attempt at stealing your identity. Either way, it's not something I want on my computer and I hope you feel the same.

Recently, I have seen a flood of a special kind of spyware that also includes a browser hijaacker which redirects users to someplace other than where they thought and often injects incessant streams of pop-ups, as well.

Luckily, there are a couple of free utilities expressely for detecting and removing Trojans and Spyware.

Spybot Search & Destroy is better at Worms and Ad-Aware is as good as it gets for the rest. Both are fairly easy to use with the understanding that they, too, need to be updated and should then be run at least once each year.

Since Worms tend to be more troublesome, go to Safer-Networking.org

As always, should you have any questions or problems, please feel free to contact me by Email or by phone.

Sincerely,

Davis M McCarn
Computer-Help.Net
184 Eaglecrest Drive
Matthews, NC 28104
(704) 882-7551 or
(704) 609-1970 cell
Email: davism@computer-help.net

© Davis M McCarn 2005 All Rights Reserved