I would love to make this short, in the hopes that you won't be tempted to skip it. Instead I am just going to take all the words the subject needs to educate the reader. Do not think that you don't need to read this. Don't think it is someone else's responsibility to stop viruses. Don't think that you are too smart to get a virus. Don't think that you will never get a virus because you never open attachments. It is not a question of WILL you get a virus. Only of how many you will get, how many people will you spread it to before you find out and what will you do once you have the virus.
As REALTORS® we depend on the internet to be able to input, search and retrieve our MLS data. There is no going back to any other way. More of our customers are wanting to communicate via email everyday. They have it at their house, their work and the hotel they stay at when on vaction has a computer room they can use, if they didn't bring their laptop with them to plug into the data port on the telephone in their room. You can have the MLS on your own web site (IDX) so that customers you have never met can search the data and start to build a relationship with you, never having even talked to you.
Relying on the internet makes us vurnerable. Virus writers don't usually target anyone in particular. They don't care if you are friendly or mean, pretty or ugly, short or tall, rich or not, use your computer for work or recreation, live in the USA or abroad. In short they don't care anything about you. They just want to do something that they know they shouldn't do, using a medium that makes it very difficult to be caught. Maybe it is their ego pushing them or maybe they just like the idea of ruining someone's day, even though they will never know exactly whom they have effected. If there is any specific target it is as a group. That would make the target to be Microsoft Windows Users. Especially MS Internet Explorer and Outlook Express users. Our particular MLS program (and most of them out there today) requires the use of IE. This is because of the lack of true standards in the coding of browsers to show web pages. So the vendors usually pick the biggest user base and program for it.
So what are you to do? Keep informed about high risk viruses and then take the precautions you need to take. Think this will take to much of your time and it isn't worth it? How do you like having to stop at the gas pumps once or twice a week? But you do it because you have to have gas to drive your car. If you think you are too busy to read the announcements that we put right in front of you every time you log on to the MLS web site then you are headed for trouble. Ask anyone who has had to totally wipe out their system and restore it to the way it was the day they brought it home from the store. They lost all of the files that they ever put onto their computer up to that point. All the letters they typed, all the emails they had received or sent and had stored on their computer, their address books, the flyers they had made, the digital photos of Christmas, family reunions and other memories, their kids term paper (that hadn't been printed yet) and tons of other stuff that they cried about for days because they could not recreate it. There are probably items that they discover with each passing week they wish they still had. Is that the price you want to pay for not trying to protect yourself?
Here is the minimum you must do.
1- Keep your browser updated.
2- Get/Use/Update an anti-virus program.
How do I
Update My Browser? This is easier than you think. In Internet Explorer (IE) you go to the top of the window and click on Tools. A menu comes down and you click on Window Updates. Then on the web page that opens you click on Product Updates. On versions 5.5 and up the process starts to become automated at this point. The only other thing you have to do click Download if there are any Critical Updates shown. It will download and patch your IE. This is extremely important when it comes to the Klez virus that is giving us the most trouble right now. You might even call it Critical so do the update. If you use anything less than IE 5.5 SP2 then you need to upgrade the browser. You can tell what version you are running by clicking on Help at the top of the window and then choose About Internet Explorer.
Update My Virus Protection? Most programs now will update automatically, if you let them. It is a great idea to do it that way. You won't really have to do anything except let it update. The programs can be scheduled to update at a specific time (like while you sleep) or may check for updates as soon as you open IE, in which case they will ask you if it is OK to update if they find something new. It goes without saying that you should have virus protection. I don't care what you have, as long as it works and you keep it updated. My favorite is Norton Anti-Virus. Many computers come with McAfee. There are many others out there. Some even will scan your computer for you while you are online for FREE. Do you know what the problem with those are? Besides being lots slower, they only help you find and clean viruses AFTER you have them. They do not prevent them. Go to the store and buy one, install it on your computer and let it update automatically so that you don't get a virus. One more word about what to buy. I suggest just getting the Anti-Virus program alone. For more money you can get other programs bundled with the anti-virus program. They can do lots of good things but they have also been known to cause a few problems. Especially if you don't understand what their purpose is to begin with. Try to keep it simple.