Do you have the right anti-malware, anti-virus, and other appropriate protection in place on your computer? (def: malware)
Is it up-to-date?
If not, it is just a matter of time before you end up dead-in-the-water with a computer that doesn’t work the way it should.
When it happens it’s a horrible feeling.
You feel violated, stupid, frustrated, angry.
The new malware that is out there on the web is pretty sophisticated.
The days of opening up an attachment and getting “stung” are pretty mild compared to the new stuff.
Of particular interest is the malware that attaches itself to your PC and can take hours, or even days, to get rid of.
Imagine not having your computer for three or four days and then having to pay a technician $400 to fix it?
Some of these new malware programs can even come in and figure out your passwords using keyboard-logging. Next thing you know, they’ve used your passwords to hack your website.
Oh, and by the way… they won’t just take it down. No, they’ll install their malware on your website so that the next person (bride) who visits gets infected.
This is not a great way to start the sales process.
And if that’s not enough, when Google finds malware on your website, and it is constantly looking, they’ll start telling everyone who sees it in the search engine results pages (SERPS), your website will get de-listed, lose all your rankings, and finally get removed from their index altogether.
Double OUCH.
I have a background in technical support at the desktop level and my PC, laptop, and notebook are like fortresses.
Even still, I visited a website the other day doing some research for Wedding Business Today and before I could stop it a nasty program had taken over my browser and computer and was relentlessly trying to sell me, of all things, malware/anti-virus software.
So what can you do?
First, I want to say I do not recommend any Norton/Symantec Anti-Virus (etc.) product. For no other reason than you have to pay for technical support. That rubs me the wrong way. I buy their software, it doesn’t work right on my computer, and I have to pay to get it working right? Sorry, no way.
If that’s not enough, it’s extremely bloated software and will drag down the performance of just about any computer. If you ask me, just say NO to any and all Norton/Symantec products.
What do I recommend?
Take a multi-product approach to this. Two or three lines of defense are always better than one.
For Anti-Virus I recommend AVG. http://free.avg.com. Their free version is great for anti-virus protection, anti-spyware, and link scanning. Download it and run it every night (I run mine at 3:00am automatically using the schedule option).
I’d also recommend downloading, installing, and regularly using the MalwareBytes scanner. Additionally, if you do get hit with a nasty bug you’ll have it ready-to-use. http://www.malwarebytes.org.
With these two products in place on your PC you’ll be in good of shape for 2010.
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