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Day One Hardware Vs. Software DayTwo – notes Backing up your Data Day Three – notes Day Four – notes Malicious Software |
Preventing Malicious Software (Malware) There is plenty of software floating around out there that is designed to do things you would not want done. Some of it is just designed to monitor your behavior and report it back to someone (spyware), some of it is designed to be disruptive to your your computer, and some of it will just take over part of your computer to do work for someone else (bots). There are two basic ways of dealing with these types of problems, active, and on-demand. Most software packages you can install work in both modes. Active scanning requires that software be loaded and running all the time looking for signs that malware is active. The On-Demand method means that the program only runs when it is asked to. This can be based on a schedule, or it can be something you run when you choose to. Active Scanning runs all the time and looks for 'odd' behavior. This results in finding Malware almost right after it starts running. It also means that the Scanner is one more piece of software that is always running and maybe slowing your computer down or causing conflicts with other software. Active Scanning might not find Malware that is sitting on the hard drive, inactive. On-Demand Scanning generally is set to run on a schedule. Once started, the Scanner will look at all of the files on the hard drive. This means that malware may be located, even if it is not running. This is an advantage over the Active Scanners. The disadvantage to On-Demand Scanning is that malware is not detected until you run a scan. If you scan once a week, then the malware could have been there for up to a week before it was found. I personally prefer to use the On-Demand scanners. However, if you use your computer on the Internet, read E-mail, and do not know what to 'watch out for', then Active scanners will be better. |