You probally heard of this before, but it is a fact that you must keep your antivirus program up to date with the latest definitions. Updated definitions are needed to determine the latest viruses out there. Just because you have an Anit Virus program installed on your computer does not mean that you are ok. If you have let the subscription update service expired and depending for how long, it could be the same as not having a Anti Virus program. Now what is bad, there really is not a virus program out there that detects all viruses and running 2 or 3 different virus programs at the same time is not recommended. A Anti Virus program is only 1 of 4 sets of security features that you need to have implemented.

That is why it is also important that you practice safe pc practices. That is do not open harmful attachments even if you recognize who is sending it. You see when a virus sends itself out from an infected computer, your friend or whoever more than likely does not know that they are participating in this emai transaction. So if you assume that they actually sent it, you could be wrong and bam, you are infected.

Email attachments that you definitely DO NOT open are the following:

anyname.vbs -------------- visual basic script
anyname.exe-------------- executable
anyname.com ------------ command
anyname.scr ------------- script



Usually the safe attachments are the following:

anyname.jpg --------------- photo
anyname.bmp ------------- photo
anyname.gif ---------------- photo
anyname.avi --------------- audio video
anyname.mpg ------------ audio video
anyname.txt -------------- notepad document
anyname.pdf ------------- adobe reader
anyname.doc ------------ word document
anyname.pps ------------ powerpoint slideshow
anyname.xls ------------- excel spreadsheet

If you recieve an attachment that is not listed above, it is best Not to open it at all. If you feel that this is something that you really need to open, seek professional advise for the program that this attachment might be associated with.

More times than not, your computer will become infected with a virus from email attachments. E-Greeting Cards usually sent to you in your email program is also a very popular way to infect your computer. However, there are malicious sites are out there and they can do harm to your computer also. These are usually the porn sites and also some of the hackers sites. It is a good idea to keep your Browser program up to date. While IE 6.0 is the most popular, mainly because it comes preloaded on every computer, Firefox is starting to gain wide exceptance partly because people feel more secure with that browser and others because of their anti-microsoft position. Either way competition is good, expecially with the browser because it will keep the programmers busy trying to fend off the other and in the interim maybe stay ahead of the hackers or whoever is out there trying to beat the system.

Remember these unwanted programs are being refined better and better. They can get into your computer under the radar and you do not know that they are there. They monitor your keystrokes looking for the obvious "bank" name in the address bar when you type it in and then it logs your username and password. It then sends this info on and whoever is on the other end can use this info to access your account without any alarms going off.