How to Find What Virus was Removed

Norton does a great job of protecting me from viruses. It will pop up and let me know that it is scanning outgoing and incoming mail. While receiving email, if the program runs across a virus it will pop up a save window letting me know where the backup file is being saved, This is usually the quarantine folder within the Norton program. With Outlook / Outlook Express simply right click the paperclip icon in the preview pane. You'll see that the attachment is called "Norton Antivirus Deleted1.txt", click the file.

 
A message will come up in notepad telling you the name of the infected document that was removed and what virus it contained


McAfee has very similar features: it scans my incoming and outgoing mail and it pops up to let me know when there's a threat in my email. The pop up window in McAfee also has the name of the potential virus with a link to more information concerning the virus in question.


This is nice and because you can see the threat without going though the procedure of clicking the paperclip for the name of the virus like in the before mentioned Norton antivirus. However, you can view the virus information by clicking on the paperclip like you do with Norton if you didn't catch the virus name in the initial pop up and would like view information on it.

Both McAfee and Norton have virus information sections of their website. This is a good place to take any information that you have gathered on the virus or threat, and plug it in. This can give you a really good idea about what's going on in your system and over time make you a virus expert.


Run Away Icons


Q:
When I try to click my icons, they seem to "run away" from my mouse. I can't get to them and I'm having a hard time using my computer. What's wrong?

A:


 It's actually a virus, the "magistr" one to be exact. If you've been infected with it for more than two months, it will cause the jumpy icon. In addition, it causes massive system instability, can mess up your BIOS, and delete all kinds of files. It will even take some text files and fill them with as many dirty words as it can (rated G newsletter or I'd tell you what word in particular :-)

Needless to say, this one is nasty and can really cause some damage. In fact, if it messes up your computer's BIOS, it can potentially render your computer useless. It's extremely well written and very robust for a virus. In other words - you don't want it playing around on your machine - ever.

Although it comes via e-mail, the subject line varies, as does the attachment. There's no way to even guess what to look out for. This is another one that distributes itself by sending to the people in your address book, so remember - just because you get an attachment from a friend doesn't automatically mean it's safe! If your friend is infected, he won't even know he sent it to you!