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WDR Computer Club Digital 1995 August
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CLUB_0895.BIN
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antiviru
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arfav
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prevent.doc
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1995-06-25
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4KB
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80 lines
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▌ ▐
▌ VIRUS PREVENTION ▐
▌ ▐
▌ Leonard P. Gragson ▐
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AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION
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It's better to never get a virus than to have to clean one, even
if you do know what you are doing. Here's a few good suggestions:
1. WRITE PROTECTION! Use the write protect tab on your floppies,
especially any recovery disks you have. A virus cannot write past
write protection! Some hard drives permit write-protection on the
boot and partition sectors. By all means, use it if you have it.
System Administrators: see if your network won't allow you to
write-protect certain sub-directories. That's very useful; for
example, you could put all executables in a write-protected area.
2. Make sure you have a reputable anti-virus package in place,
and/or use a reputable scanner, before using new software on your
PC. THIS INCLUDES DISKETTES THAT COME IN BRAND NEW SHRINK-WRAPPED
PACKAGING! In my opinion, you stand as good a chance from getting
a virus from a brand new package as you do a reputable BBS.
(Stephen notes: statistics bear this out, too. The number one way
that viruses are spread, in fact, is by friends swapping disks,
and in business, by people bringing disks from home. See Leon-
ard's next suggestion ...)
3. Avoid "borrowing" software or disks. In addition to avoiding a
virus, you can avoid violating US Copyright laws!
4. Stay off of sleazy BBS's. There are plenty of good, reputable
BBS's that take a good hard look at what they put on their boards.
While you can't get a virus infection from sending and receiving
email (contrary to popular legend), or from merely downloading a
file, you CAN get a virus if that file is infected and you use it!
If you don't know what the board does to avoid virus contamina-
tion, ask the sysop point blank. Even at that, there have been
several cases where viruses have been inadvertently distributed by
well known, national on-line information services.
5. Make sure your PC is configured to boot from the HARD drive,
and NOT from a floppy drive, as its first choice. This will help
prevent an SBR/MBR infection from a boot-infected floppy.
6. Keep a resident virus monitor running in your computer. Our
ARFMAIN shield is highly recommended, as is our PRO-BOOT anti-
virus partition. Monitor your system as a whole, too; INJECT
makes this task much easier, since it automatically checks each
INJECTed file immediately upon execution.
A POUND OF CURE
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Here's the laundry list. Use PRO-BOOT to keep a backup of your
Main Boot Record (MBR) and partition table. DON'T FORGET to keep
a clean bootable floppy clearly marked AND WRITE PROTECTED, with
all ARF utilities on it, in a safe place. (This is so important
that I'd actually recommend more than one copy.)
If you suspect a virus and you've INJECTed your executable files,
use the INJECT utility to clean them. Otherwise, you'll be at the
mercy of the generic cleaners which tend not to be 100% accurate.
If you're not sure on what to do, call someone who does. Odds are
that the computer repair person you contact through a Yellow Page
ad won't have any special knowledge or training in computer vir-
uses, though; don't forget, registered users can call us for in-
depth assistance in the event of an attack.
(OK, we had to throw in one cheap advertisement here at the end!)