Trick or Treat!

Today is Halloween.  Time for candy, ghosts, goblins, candy, trick-or-treating, pumpkins, witches, zombies, more candy, and ... did I mention candy?  

We tell the kids to be safe out there.  There are all the checklists of what to bring with you, what houses to avoid, what to/not to do, etc.   Well, now's a good time for the grown-ups to think about safety a little, too!

As this humorous video shows, there are viruses, and programs to protect you from them.   Companies like Symantec (makers of Norton), McAfee, AVG, and Avast base their business around identifying and responding to the latest and greatest viruses and threats.  

Several Internet Service Providers (ISP's) recognize that some people can't - or won't buy an antivirus or security program for some reason.   Maybe they believe that they're safe, or that they don't do anything risky, or they don't have kids, etc.   Unfortunately, these days sometimes all it takes is to surf past a web link with some malicious code that will take advantage of a weakness in Internet Explorer and turn your computer into a gold mine for identity theft - or a zombie to be used to send spam or DDoS attacks.   In response, companies offer "free" versions of their security software to aid users who may not have the inclination to spend money on it.

Isn't free protection good enough? Symantec says "no" in this sales pitch for their current Norton 2012 suite.  What's important to remember here is that these are for-profit businesses.   Free and demo versions of their software   offer a taste, but necessarily do not provide the full protection that a paid version will.  Remember, there's no such thing as a free lunch.  Important to take from the Norton pitch is not their advertised superiority, but rather that free, demo, or light versions are just that - light, and lacking in the ability to protect against the same spectrum of threats that exist.

Windows based computers take the lion's share of the market.  Microsoft's software also has many exploitable weaknesses (that they routinely patch as discovered).   **NOTE TO WINDOWS USERS:  Keep your Windows Security Updates up to date to protect against the latest known exploitations!**  However, Apple products are not immune to viruses, as some may believe.   Even Linux computers have (very few) viruses that may affect them.  

Viruses come in may forms.  There are  ones spread through contaminated email attachments, downloaded from file-sharing sites, tracked-through malicious internet code, and more.   Today, I'm only examining actual viruses - not hacks of accounts from gaming or social media sites - those will be addressed at another time.

It really only takes a moment of carelessness to allow your machine to become infected.   Take this from personal experience, as even I, once opened a harmful attachment that came in at the same time I was expecting a file.  

Protect yourself, your identity, your family, your work, and your equipment.   Make sure that you have a good antivirus program - and make sure you keep it updated!

***Note:  My use of the Norton Internet Security 2011 and 2012 links is intended for informational use, not as an absolute product endorsement.