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It looks like it's going to be a tough winter. Cases of the flu are getting higher as winter goes on. It is going to be a tough winter on another front - the viruses that are attacking our computers are on the rise. Generated on computers, they continue to cause severe cases of ill health in other computers. They all seem to have strange and, sometimes, romantic names. Michelangelo was one. More recently, we had Melissa. Chernobyl sounded appropriately scary. Just recently, it was Worm.ExploreZip. We've been told that this last one is similar to a virus, but is technically a worm program, because it delivers a payload and then moves to another machine instead of infecting an entire machine. The worm affects any Microsoft API-compliant e-mail program. Like all diseases, virus programs appear to attack at random. We've heard of major companies and government department being brought down. The e-mail systems in these organisations have had to be closed and disinfected. t sounds about as bad as a hospital being infected with golden staphylococcus bacteria. The best cure for some diseases is prevention. And so it is with computer viruses. We're told the best way to beat them is not to open any .exe files we receive by e-mail. That sounds fairly straightforward to me. It's certainly a standing rule at MegaHard Corporation, which makes this web site. (I've gone one further and also refuse any .doc attachments to an e-mail. Just send me the message as plain text.) Like colds and flu, computer viruses appear to be a permanent part of life. As with colds and flu we can get jabs and may ward them off. But as with colds and flu, these have to updated regularly. Any new or more vicious outbreak causes a near panic in many IT communities. As for me? I'll continue practising safe computing - no unknown .exe, .doc or .zip files. And also downloading only from reliable sites like this one. And I advise you to do the same. |