In this video, we're going to talk about computer viruses, what are they, how do they work and
how can you protect your own computer and your business computers against viral attacks.
Good day Dan, how are you?
Good, thanks Tim.
So let's talk about viruses, this is something that really
gets your attention when you have one.
How does it look when you actually have a virus active on your computer?
So, you may not know that you have a virus for some days or even weeks.
But you start seeing a few things go wrong whether it's the key, the keyboard not working
or whether it's the mouse moving from side to side, and in the wrong places.
But over time you see that your computers just not performing the way they used to be.
When it's something like a ransomware, you might see a pop-up come up and say, you have
ransomware (right) or you have been attacked (right), whereas with some of these viruses,
you may just not even know when, until your computer completely slows down.
Okay.
So, what are these viruses after?
If a ransomware is after money, and a virus just sort of slows you down, what's, why are
they even on your machines?
What are they sort of getting out of it?
So, viruses are generally on there to be able to open a door for an attack to come in and
again, whether that is some kind of a data theft or whether that's somebody just wanting
to lock your computer down and give you the key based on a payment of bitcoins.
(Okay) So, viruses on there generally to open the door for some other malicious activity.
So, if we're thinking viruses and ransomware, and data theft is that the kind of the big
3 you need to be worried about in terms of data security?
Yeah, that's right.
Okay good.
So let's talk about anti-virus protection, what should you be doing on your own PC?
What should you be installing?
So, when you buy a new machine, say it's Windows 10 machine, it would normally have the standard
Windows Defender on it, which is suitable for getting rid of some fairly basic viruses
that would come on.
Windows Defender is a good PC software, we would generally say couple that with one of
the other industry leaders such as Trend Micro, or Symantec anti-virus to be able to give
you better anti-virus protection.
You then load that on all the computers in the office, as well as that if you have a
server in the office or even server in the cloud, you load the anti-virus software on
that as well.
Okay.
There should be anti-virus software kind of everywhere, and beyond just a free
Windows Defender that comes with Windows.
I've seen some press recently about not trusting virus software from certain countries, I wanna
say you shouldn't have China-based or Russia-based to what, is there any truth
to any of those rumours?
I think from different commentators you would hear different stories about what is acceptable
and what isn't.
Generally, we try and stick to software which is made in the U.S., the UK or Australia.
Occasionally, you'll have to use anti-virus software from a different country, most of
the time Russia or some of the Asian countries.
But, yeah, we generally try and stick to something that's made in the U.S. or the UK or Australia.
Once you have a virus on your machine, how do you go about removing that virus or do
you have to chuck the machine out and start again?
See, you don't have to chuck the machine out.
Normally the anti-virus software that you have installed on there will be able to take
care of the virus.
If it doesn't, you can go to the one of those websites I mentioned before - Trend Micro
or Symantec, in a lot of cases you can download a free anti-virus tool without having to buy
the software to be able to remove the virus.
As long as you know which one of these?
Yeah, that's right.
You got to know which one of these first.
Because in terms of those, that software, it's specific to the individual virus.
Is that, am I wrong there, or is that...
No, sorry.
So, you can go to any of those websites and download their anti-virus removal tool which
generally takes care of most viruses.
Really, and this could take care of everything.
Oh that's very nice of them.
The thing that those anti-virus companies don't provide is that real time security.
That's what you have to pay for.
So when you buy anti-virus software, you're buying that real time security that's always
checking for viruses on your computer and the background when you're surfing the net
and making documents and things like that.
When you download it, that's not real-time security, you've generally got a virus you're
trying to remove.
Okay, understood.
What can we talk about, in terms of computer virus protection and computer virus removal.
What kind of ballpark price we're looking at here?
You've said you get what you pay for.
Are we talking 10 grand for the best thing there is or, you know what sort of ballpark
numbers are we talking about?
For good anti-virus software, we generally look at somewhere between 5 and 10 dollars
per computer per month.
Okay, so it's renewed over time and it's refreshed and updated and what have you.
Yes, so then the monthly subscription gives you the latest anti-virus updates.
So, if a new virus comes out in the next 10 minutes you'll get that update come through,
it also gives you product releases.
So, if new versions of the software come out by that anti-virus manufacturer.
The subscription also gives you the latest version of the software as well.
Alright, terrific.
Anything else we should cover when it comes to viruses in particular.
Don't disable it.
Leave it on, leave it running and make sure it's always up to date.
Alright, excellent.
Thanks very much.
For those of you who'd like to find out more of perhaps ask Dan, or someone from his team
more specific questions about what's going on for you and your business, please get in
touch with us online through sabervox.com.au