Privacy, Security & Virus Information

When your computer begins to look a bit tired, you can't give it some Ovaltine

Once a simple rectangular box that sat in a corner, computers have become like a part of a family for hundreds of thousands of UK families. And when a member of your family gets a little off-colour or sluggish it only natural that it's loved ones will get a little worried.

However in case we forget that a computer is still an inanimate piece of machinery, it's important that giving your computer a cup of hot ovaltine or a spoon full of cod liver oil won't help your computer to get back to normal speed. In fact the opposite will normally apply.

When a computer starts to slow down, it can be very frustrating for the owner/ operator. After all we don't expect our computer to give us problems and there are very few people who have enough knowledge to put things right when they do.

The only action that a computer owner, and especially one that spends a lot of their time online, can take is to assume that they have fallen victim to some form of virus attack. The spread of the internet has seen some remarkable advances in technology, particularly in the ease of spread of information. Unfortunately this technology and removal of barriers comes at a price, which is the global epidemic of computer viruses in a wide range of formats that have been engineered to attack computers.

Many of the new generations of viruses can be either Trojan horses or botnets, which once they have successfully infiltrated a computer's operating system will often lie in wait gathering information of the computer's owner or other computers that link to it. Even worse are botnets which are highly sophisticated viruses that are pre-programmed to synchronize global virus attacks in conjunction with other compromised computers throughout the World.

The presence of these viruses are liable to considerably slow down a computer's performance and are therefore a symptom that the computer needs the attention of an expert and without any further ado to expunge all of the viruses that it has picked up.

Once a computer has been given a clean bill of health, installing a powerful anti-virus software is the next step that must be taken to prevent a recurrence of the attack. Owning a computer is a responsibility and one that must be taken seriously, just as we care about the other things that we love and care about.

 

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