Ah Chooo !!! or "Oh no! You Got The Virus Too!"
By Steve EnsleyWow! Last week was certainly interesting in the personal computer world. Anyone that has ever owned a computer has wondered about viruses and the one last week was the worst yet. The last and most common estimate that I saw was that over 80% of the computers running Microsoft Outlook have been or will be affected by the virus. Other estimates put the cost of this destructive virus anywhere from $100 million to $2 billion dollars. That is a lot of money by any standard!
There are literally thousands of computer viruses floating around out there and they get more and more clever every day. Some are just annoying and others are very destructive. Whatever the case, the only purpose I can see for a computer virus is to bring some level of pain into another person's life. We will talk more about this in a bit.
What is a computer virus?
There are many great articles on the net about this latest virus and I am not going to attempt an in-depth technical review of the virus. But hopefully this article will give you a little perspective on the issue and help you to see the impact of computer viruses and also help you understand some appropriate responses.
In non-technical terms a computer virus is a program or script that can run as a standalone program or is attached to some other program or file. The standalone virus tries to trick you into running the program after it has been loaded on to your machine through some stealth process such as floppy disks, CD's or the Internet. Many times these viruses are buried in games that are downloaded from the Internet or embedded into pirated software sold at discount rates on CD.
More common lately is the virus attached to an email. This virus is cleverly disguised to make you think it came from a friend or someone you can trust. You open the E-mail and you may or may not see a nice note. And sitting there somewhere in the note, usually at the end, is an attachment. If you open the attachment, the virus is activated and your machine is now infected! And that is not the worst part!
These new viruses are designed to not only infect your system, but also to look at your email address book an then send itself out to everyone in your address book.
What is the impact of a virus?
This latest virus was very destructive for that very reason that it could send itself out to everyone in the computer's address book. Within seconds it infected the personal computer, then created and sent infected emails to everyone in that computer's address book.
It was also particularly prolific within the infected systems. It did nasty things like infect all of the image files, sound files and html (Internet files) that it could find. It also created hidden and read-only infected files so that could even avoid some of the virus checking and cleanup programs. And if that was not bad enough, it could replicate itself every ten minutes so that if you did not get everything cleaned up within ten minutes, it put back the infected files. This was certainly a bad one. Unfortunately, at least 29 copycat viruses have been unleashed since the bad one last week causing more grief and havoc and loss of productivity. Some viruses are a nuisance others are destructive. This one was very destructive.
Why do computer viruses like this one cause so much fear?
There are many reactions to computer viruses. They can interfere with our goals. They can really take the fun out of our lives. They will definitely disturb your peaceful use of your computer and they make it tough to know that your computer is ever right again.
As if we needed any further proof that mankind has a sin nature, this latest computer virus further proves that man has an unlimited ability to do harm to others. This virus created no personal gain or benefit to any person; it simply destroyed computer files and multiplied itself like a cancer.
I believe the evil intent and the cancer like spread of a computer virus brings a lot of concern to all of us computer users. It vividly points out how vulnerable we all feel when it comes to detecting and preventing destructive viruses. In addition, just the meanness of a computer virus causes us fear. We lose our trust and we are forced to compromise some of the power of our computer.
What is our Christian response?
Scripture gives us guidance in Mathew 10:16 "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves." Scripture also frequently warns us that as Christians saved by grace, we are in the world, but not of the world. We are to be aware of the dangers around us and we are to be seekers of knowledge and wisdom. Again, in this case we really need to have a discerning spirit.
Here are some practical suggestions. Do not open email attachments from people you do not know. I will take this one step further by saying do not even open email attachments from people you do know, especially if you are not expecting an attachment. In fact, do not open any attachment unless you know exactly what is in the attachment.
Now I know this will get me into trouble because people like to send online greeting cards as links or attachments, but disguised greetings can, and often do, carry a virus. That really makes a person upset. Greeting cards are a very personal and fun way to let someone know you are thinking of them. It is a shame that we have to be concerned about online greeting cards, but on the receiving end, you just do not know for sure if what you received is a greeting or a virus. The decision is yours, but be aware that even an apparent greeting can be a virus. Fortunately, legitimate card sites do a good job of filtering out viruses, so just be discerning when you select a greeting card site.
Consider the purchase of a good virus checker program. There are many available and they range in price from $20 to $100. Be sure to keep you virus checker updated. I have mine set to update no less than once per week. The small fees involved will be well worth it compared to a complete re-load of your system, especially if you lose some data that is not properly backed up. Failure to follow these directives can result in a complete loss of your computer's content. This is not a fun thing for sure!
All of this leads up to the same advice I have often given. Please be wary of the Internet, test everything and be mindful of the dark side of the Internet. The Internet is a great resource! Unfortunately, it is a great resource for god and bad!
God bless you and have the best day ever!Steve Ensley - President
AFO