Protecting Your
System
Help Protect
Yourself and Westchester Community College Against Viruses
To help
prevent viruses from spreading to and from any of your computers, you can
follow the basic principles used to protect on-campus computers:
-
Be sure that you have virus protection software such as
Norton AntiVirus, McAfee VirusScan or Microsoft ForeFront installed on
your computer, and that:
-
Your
software’s license is up to date
-
The program
is set to download automatically the latest virus definitions at least
once a week.
-
The program
is set to scan each file that you open.
-
The program
performs a complete scan of your system at least once a week. The
document Automating Virus-protection Updates and Scans contains detailed
procedures for getting maximum protection from your anti-virus software.
-
Be sure that your Windows operating system has all the
critical updates installed, and that Windows checks for new
updates automatically.
-
If you have a cable or DSL connection at home, you may
wish to acquire a hardware or software firewall that you can configure
to prevent intrusions from unknown machines. For more information on
what firewalls do and how they work, see
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/firewall.htm. The two
most popular anti-virus software vendors – Symantec (Norton AntiVirus)
and McAfee (VirusScan) also offer firewall software. In addition, the
following site gives information about free firewall software:
http://www.free-firewall.org.
The first
two guidelines are the minimum necessary to protect your computer from
viruses. The third provides another layer of protection and helps keep
computer hackers from invading your computing environment.
In addition,
you should follow other safe computing guidelines:
-
Don’t open e-mail
attachments
unless you know both the person who sent it and the reason
it was sent. Some viruses are spread via attachments that seem to come
from legitimate addresses but are simply means of spreading the virus.
When in doubt, don’t open the attachment without checking with your
correspondent first. And be sure your virus scanner checks the
attachment automatically before you open it.
-
Don’t download
files from Web sites
unless you are sure the files are virus-free; reputable
Web sites usually certify that their files do not contain viruses.
-
Avoid sharing files
with other computers either via removable media or via electronic
services unless you are confident that the source is trustworthy.
For other safe computing guidelines, see the following Web sites:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/
http://www.claymania.com/safe-hex.html
http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/articles/safehex.html
http://www.trendmicro.com/en/security/general/guide/overview.htm
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,113175,00.asp
In addition,
the site
http://www.windowsupdate.com provides a
three-step guide to ensuring that your personal computer is secure from
virus and hacker attacks.
Or search
the Web for the phrase “safe computing” to find a list of sites with good
advice.
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