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The morning I wrote this, my own computer was attacked 34 times in less than 3 hours by the latest nasty Internet virus
-- in my
case, completely without success. But if you're not adequately protected, then
sooner or later, you're very likely to run into some trouble from viruses,
spyware, or hackers. I would have to say that the vast majority of computer
systems I look at are vulnerable -- quite often extremely
vulnerable -- to some of these kinds of attacks.
Spyware consists of sneaky programs that are installed by web sites you've
visited. Aside from literally
spying on your surfing habits and reporting back to whoever has infiltrated your
system, these programs also create problems by popping up unwanted advertisements, forcibly
changing your home page, even causing your computer to malfunction. Although in many cases it's obvious you've
been hijacked, you can also have tons of spyware on your computer and be
completely unaware of it. For example, if your computer is just getting
slower and slower, you most likely have a serious spyware infection.
And some of this stuff can be very
difficult to get rid of, because the designers have designed it to thwart, as
effectively as possible, all of your efforts to remove it! You can literally
remove a problem only to have it "magically reappear" in a few days
-- unless you've removed the hidden root cause.
Fortunately, there are things
you can do both to get rid of this awful stuff, and to keep most of it from
coming back. While there's no such thing as "perfect security" (and if
there were it would probably be obsolete tomorrow), I can make your system about
as close as possible to bulletproof -- and
help you learn how to keep it that way.
back to
troubleshooting
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