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Computerworld - Several years ago, I got the flu. My doctor's advice: Get a flu shot next year, because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The same maxim applies to computers. While 2003 proved to be a busy year for malicious code, some experts feel that 2004 may be worse. Now is a good time to take a proactive security stance and prepare for the onslaught of viruses, worms and Trojan horse programs we're likely to see in coming months.
One overlooked area of concern may be those computers that you received as holiday gifts. A warning issued by Sophos PLC says that "many PCs available on the high street come with software which was produced many months before, so their security patches are out of date. Similarly antivirus software, often bundled with a home computer, is unlikely to provide out-of-the-box protection for recent viruses." With hundreds of new viruses appearing monthly, outdated antivirus protection (even just a few months) can allow a virus to attack your shiny new PC, reducing it to a $2,000 paperweight.
The solution is to make sure your antivirus software is current and that any recently released operating system and application patches have been downloaded and applied. If for some reason your new PC didn't come with antivirus software installed, you should acquire some as soon as possible, particularly before going online and downloading any e-mails or electronic greeting cards.
The simple act of opening e-mail attachments, screen savers or electronic greeting cards can dramatically increase your risk of malicious code infection. As Sophos points out, while this is true all year long, the risk is somewhat greater during the busy holiday season, when a busy schedule may cause you to let your guard down.
To lessen your risk of infection, the Computer Security Resource Center of the National Institute of Standards and Technology recommends using the following "two-tiered" approach for detecting and preventing viruses from spreading:

• On PCs, install and use antivirus software capable of scanning disks, attachments to e-mail, files downloaded from the Web and documents generated by word-processing and spreadsheet programs.


• Use antivirus software at Internet gateways or firewalls to scan e-mail attachments and other downloaded files.

	Douglas Schweitzer is an Internet security specialist with a focus on malicious code. He is the author of several books, including Internet Security Made Easy, Securing the Network from Malicious Code and the recently released Incident Response: Computer Forensics Toolkit.

It's important to remember that antivirus software should be installed and updated when the computer isinitially configured. Subsequently, the antivirus software should be updated weekly with new virus definitions. If your vendor provides an automated update feature, be sure to configure it to do so on a weekly basis at a minimum. In addition, if your vendor provides e-mail alerts whenever a new virus is discovered in the wild, be sure to sign up.
Although Macintosh viruses have been few and far between, you should nevertheless also be sure to install and update antivirus software for the Macintosh to prevent spreading Windows or Linux viruses to users of those operating systems.

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