Word: antivirus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Noticed something weird about your computer lately? Maybe you see yourself uploading files with names like “Porno Screensaver.scr” on Kazaa even though you didn’t download anything of the sort. Maybe your antivirus software doesn’t load anymore, or your computer beeps randomly. Or maybe your hard drive has been constantly running ever since you downloaded that attached message from the “Harvard.edu Team...
...secure your computer with an antivirus program and a firewall, this kind of spyware will find its way onto your computer. Using security holes in AOL Instant Messenger, Internet Explorer and other popular programs, these parasitic spyware applications can auto-install themselves and harvest your personal information after just one mistaken mouse-click. Unfortunately, it will be hard for Congress to regulate this kind of spyware. Just as spammers and virus coders are rarely found, so the creators of this kind of spyware will be hard to identify and punish. To address this problem in part, Bono?...
Virus writers in search of street cred are nothing new. Nor is the billion-dollar antivirus industry that has sprung up since the mid-1980s. Their cat-and-mouse game evolves every time a flaw is found in Microsoft Windows, which runs on 95% of personal computers worldwide. And flaws in Windows are as plentiful as mosquitoes in August. The other problem is the infrastructure of the Internet itself, which is almost as rickety as Northeastern power lines. Up to 70 security holes are noted every week...
...most of the exploitation of these flaws is benign or short lived. Of the 77,000 known viruses in the world, all but 900 are known as zoo viruses; that is, their incurably geeky creators simply e-mailed them to antivirus-software firms like proud parents passing around pictures of their new offspring. Roughly 200 viruses are in the wild at any one time. Most simply don't spread well; others are lame attempts at getting you to open an infected e-mail attachment. "Nude pictures of your wife," anyone...
Computers can also be hacked into by viruses. The best protection against these, Davis said, is to use antivirus programs such as those distributed to all students in the school’s startup software package...