atw: Re: PC protection

Oh and I forgot that many workplaces with a site licence for something like
Vet are often licensed to provide free copies for their employees to take
home, protecting them and the workplace.  At least that was the case with
the Colonial Bank (in 2000, pre Commonwealth takeover) when I was there.

Also Stuart (B)'s posting reminds me, my ISP, Pacific Internet
<http://www.pacific.net.au/> provides free virus and Spam filtering of
all incoming E=96mail, as does IPrimus <http://www.iprimus.com.au/> too, I
think (might be at extra cost) but that's no substitute for having your own
system installed and regularly updated at home.

You can still install a virus from a CD-ROM of new software (even
Microsoft has been known to issue new software and updates with viruses
on the CD) and anything that you bring home from work or friend or
(especially) from University must be scanned for viruses before use.
(Universities are an absolute breeding ground for virus transmission.)

My top tip re E-mail borne viruses is to always and ONLY log in to your
Internet connection by way of your antivirus tool's "Live Update" or
"autodownload" or similar facility (without your E-mail tool running) so
that your antivirus detection is up to date BEFORE you get your E-mail..

BTW, I designed and wrote the Global Antivirus Procedure that was
credited with saving the Colonial Bank from the worst impacts of the
Love Bug virus.  I was hand editing my printed procedure when their
Help Desk sent the virus to my PC, wiping it out.  I shut off my PC and
we used my procedure clean up the damage, making them the least
impacted bank in Australia.  The Love Bug stole so much network
bandwidth, by sending itself to every address in every address list,
that even the ATMs of most banks couldn't function.  So I know what
I'm talking about.

(Before Love Bug, Colonial used to keep the first hundred addresses in their
E-mail address book as bogus, but Love Bug grabbed them all. as it sent and
mutated.  Very clever.)

That's why I use Eudora Pro Email at home, not Outlook (which is
impossible to close down when it goes into Love Bug send everywhere
mode, without using the Off switch on your PC).  Plus I do not keep an
E-mail address book.  Rather I use Eudora's auto-complete function that
remembers a nominated number of recently used E-mail addresses.

HTH.

Michael Granat
Write Ideas

At 15:04 23/9/2004, you wrote:
>I'm about to change ISP (from TPG to WestNet). I'm going to try their spam-
>and virus-protection service, which adds up to $30/year. My reasoning is
>that I've never lost work time to a virus, but I've lost a huge amount of
>time over the years to anti-virus software--installing it, downloading
>updates, running it, recovering from buggy upgrades. Why not let the ISP
>handle it?

Michael E. Granat
Qualified Good Tech Writer Dude
Fellowship Of The Ring Of Tech Writers, Yeah Baby!
T/as Write Ideas
E-mail: mailto:writeideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web: <http://home.pacific.net.au/~megranat/>
Without Prejudice.
E&OE.


**************************************************
To post a message to austechwriter, send the message to 
austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To subscribe to austechwriter, send a message to 
austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject field.

To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 
"unsubscribe" in the Subject field.

To search the austechwriter archives, go to 
www.freelists.org/archives/austechwriter

To contact the list administrator, send a message to 
austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
**************************************************

Other related posts: