A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself or reproduce itself and infect another computer system without permission or knowledge of the user. A virus can only spread from one computer to another when its host is taken to the uninfected computer, for instance by a user sending it over a network or carrying it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, or USB drive or via an attachment in Email. Additionally, viruses can spread to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer the bigest network that can be accessed via your computer is the internet. DO NOT go browsing the internet without first being prepaired with anti virus software.

Virus Prevention Tips

Stay aware of current virus news by checking sites like the CA virus information centre. Each week, CA Security Advisory Team tabulates the top 5 malware threats based on reports received from around the world by CA's VIRTUE ™ virus sample processing system.

Keep your CA anti-virus software up-to-date.

Don't open e-mail attachments that you did not expect and don't know exactly what they are especially if you dont know who the email is from.

When downloading files from the Internet, download only from reputable sites and scan the files with CA anti virus software before executing them.

If you use Microsoft Outlook (not Express) for e-mail, make sure that the "automatic preview" feature is disabled. You can find this option under the "View" menu.