How To Keep Your Computer From Spreading Viruses
There are some simple steps you must take to avoid becoming a victim of computer viruses and also stop from spreading viruses to others. Here are some things that you can and should do.
Email Issues to watch

Never open an E-mail with an attachment you were not expecting.

The latest batch of virus programs are often spread by E-mail. Even if your anti-virus program does not warn you about the attached file and even if the eMail appears to come from someone you know, do not open it if you were not expecting it, and if you were expecting it, only open it AFTER scanning it with your up-to-date virus software.

Scan ALL incoming email attachments (regardless of who sent it).

Be sure to run each attachment you plan to open through the anti-virus check. Do this even if you recognize and trust the sender; malicious code, like Trojan horses, can slip into your system by appearing to be from a friendly source.
Turn off the ‘automatic preview’ in your email program.

Automatically previewing an email message has the exact same effect as opening and reading an email. My of the newest internet worms, trojans, and viruses simply need to have an email message read in order for them to be activated. Turning off the preview feature allows you to scan any email BEFORE you actually read it.

Disk Issues to watch

Don’t boot from a floppy disk.

Floppies are one of the most common ways viruses are transmitted. If you are using a floppy while working on your computer, remove it when you shut the machine off or the computer will automatically try to boot from the floppy, perhaps launching any viruses on the disk.

Web Based Issues

Keep your web browser set to its highest security level.

Its a pain to get the warning messages on every other web page you visit, but its the best way to protect yourself - especially if you use Microsoft Internet Explorer and Outlook.

Don’t download programs from the Web.

Unreliable sources such as Internet newsgroups or Web sites that you haven’t heard of may be willing providers of viruses for your computer. Avoid downloading files you can’t be sure are safe. This includes freeware, screensavers, games, and any other executable program - any files with an “.exe” or “.com” extension, such as “coolgame.exe.” Check to see if the site has anti-virus software running on their side. If you do have to download from the Internet, be sure to scan each program before running it. Save all downloads to one folder, then run virus checks on everything in the folder before using it. Regardless of where you download from, ALWAYS scan downloaded software.

Routine Maintenance

Make regular back ups of important data

Make it a habit to back up all of your most important files at least once a month. Store the back up discs in a safe place.

Clean any virus/worm/trojan off your computer
(Details: http://www.antivirus-report.com/trojan-horse-removal.html )

Using your antivirus software, perform a full system scan of your PC, hopefully it will detect and remove the virus. If a virus was detected, restart your computer and run the full scan again. Sometime the virus will keep reappearing, due to the evolving nature of viruses. Symantec is particularly fast at providing removal tools should you ever get a virus or worm infesting your computer.

What is a removal tool? Well simply put it is a simple software that will scan your computer for infections, and then remove them from your machine. You most often need this if your machine got infected BEFORE you installed antivirus software.

Top Considerations for PC Protection

And the final and most important two things to do to keep your computer clean and make sure it does not spread viruses to other computers…

Install a Firewall

If you use a broadband/high-speed method to access the internet, you need to get a firewall. A firewall is a program that defends your computer from hackers who attempt to gain direct access to your computer over the Internet. There is a very good firewall program called ZoneAlarm that will do the trick if you use Windows.

Install and use a high-quality anti-virus program.

This is the key to protecting your computer. Buy one of the major anti-virus programs - Norton Anti-Virus, PC-Cillin, or McAfee Anti-Virus. The primary benefit of the commercial packages is the frequency and ease of updating the virus definition files that these programs use to detect viruses. With new viruses popping up all the time, unless your protection software is kept updated, you start to become ever more vulnerable to infection.

Get immediate protection.

Configure your anti-virus software to launch automatically on start-up and run at all times. This will provide you back-up protection in case you forget to scan an attachment, or decide not to. And in case you forget to load up your anti-virus software, configuring it to start by itself will ensure you get immediate protection anyway. The top antivirus software programs all do this (but only if you have one installed on your computer). You do have current antivirus software installed right? If not, you can go to this page for more information on why you need antivirus software and how easy it is to use.

<a href="http://www.antivirus-report.com/antivirus-software.html">Antivirus software</a> and general PC protection and maintenance are essential for safe and secure computing. Right now learn to easily block trojan horses, spyware, computer viruses, and other malicious software.

Autoblogger Pro, Content Theft Or Innovation?
First of all, there may be some of you that have never even heard of Autoblogger Pro. So let?s examine this new script. Autoblogger Pro is really a very simple concept. It integrates itself into a Wordpress blog and then uses RSS feeds from news sources and blogs to populate the blog with relevant content. For example, if you want to build a blog that focuses on ?Mortgages? then you would simply locate several blog or news feeds that focus on mortgages and then load them into the admin area of the script. Every time the script is executed it will then pull in the RSS feed from all of the sites you?ve entered, and post them to the blog. In essence, you end up with a blog that contains highly targeted content, blended and unique because it comes from a variety of sources. All maintained by you with the click of a button! (A sample ABP blog can be seen here: http://www.dogs.pn )

Let me say this now. I am an advocate of Autoblogger Pro and I think that it?s a fantastic and logical development of the expected use of RSS feeds. It?s evolution people, and I think it?s fantastic!

But this morning I was surfing the web and I happened to do a search for Autoblogger Pro to see what other people were saying. To my shock and dismay I found many sites screaming that Autoblogger Pro users are ?content thieves? , ?content RAPISTS?, ?Scam artists? etc. I found this very disturbing, so I researched a few of their websites to see if their content was in some way being actually stolen. To be honest, I really had to laugh when I looked at most of their sites. Prominently displayed on all of them were buttons for their various RSS feeds, asking for syndication!

What exactly did you expect when you put that feed on your site? RSS is defined as Really Simple Syndication. So aren?t you asking that your content be syndicated when you put the feed link on your website??? Of course you are. Either they are too uneducated to understand what RSS is and put it on their sites without knowing what it is, or they are just ignorant or na and believe that only a few people with news readers will use the feed.

There?s a very simple solution for this if you?re one of those people crying foul. TAKE THE FEED DOWN. If you don?t want your content syndicated, don?t put up a feed!

Now there are some responsibilities that must be held by users of Autoblogger Pro, it?s a very powerful script, and there are options to use it unethically. When syndicating someone?s content you need to give CREDIT to the source. Remember writing term papers in college or high school? You always have to give credit to your sources. Autoblogger Pro gives you the option in it?s configuration to give credit and a link back to every post you get from syndication. USE THIS FEATURE. It?s only right to give credit where credit is due. If this is done properly, all of those blogs you?re getting your content from will stay happy, because they are in turn getting quality links back to their site, from another relevant site, and that in turn helps them in their search engine standings. It may even send them some traffic if your Autoblogger Pro site has some.

Like it or not, syndication of content is what RSS was designed for. If you don?t like how your content is being syndicated, don?t put up a feed. But if you see the positives for content syndication you?ll understand that Autoblogger Pro sites will enhance your site, not detract from it. In the long run you?ll be glad to see your content in tons of places on the web!

Till next time,
Chuck Crawford

Chuck Crawford is an established expert in web design, traffic development and website financial analysis. He has been helping people design and develop their internet business since 1996. This article may be reprinted freely as long as all links remain active. <a href="http://www.affiliatewebsitedesign.com">www.affiliatewebsitedesign.com</a> <A HREF="http://www.magicanswers.com">www.magicanswers.com</A> <A HREF="http://www.thegiftedone.com">www.thegiftedone.com</A>

How To Identify A Virus Infected E-mail Message?
It is often difficult to identify an infected e-mail message. The way modern viruses and mass mailing internet worms function, messages can seem to arrive from friends or colleagues. In reality most infected messages are being automatically sent by another infected machine who has no idea their machine even has a problem. Since the virus or worm pretend to be the owner of the infected computer it can be hard for you when you get unexpected email messages from them.

Here are a few important things to watch for:

1) E-mail messages from people you don’t know (including and especially SPAM). These are usually the culprits that put a virus on your computer.

2) E-mail messages from friends or family that you were not expecting (especially if they contain attachments). It is possible that these may not be from people you know, but may actually be spam messages.

3) Attachments in an email with subject lines that seem inappropriate or strange, even if it’s from someone you know. For example, an email from your retired father who is on a beach in Mexio titled “Update on system report” is suspicious.

4) You should NEVER EVER launch an attachment that ends with an .exe, .pif, .com, .bat, or .scr extension until you have scanned it with up-to-date virus scanner. Even files ending with .doc, and .xls (word and excel documents) can carry macro viruses and should be scanned. It does not matter if you completely 100% trust the person it came from. SCAN IT.

5) Never open SPAM email. Spam email is too easy to copy and use to send a nasty virus. I’m not saying spammers send viruses, but virus senders/creators do use spam-like messages to send their viruses, Trojans, and internet worms around.

6) If you’re not 100% sure the email is legitimate, call the sender and ask before opening the attachment. If you’re sure you’ve received an e-mail message with a virus, you should delete the email WITHOUT opening the email or the attachment. If it is important, it can always be resent.

7) Email is becoming the #1 method for viruses, worms and Trojan horses to spread. Take extra special care with your email, and you will not only protect yourself, but prevent yourself from accidentally becoming a spreader of virus loaded email messages.

The smartest thing to do is simply install a very affordable antivirus program (like Norton, McAfee, or PC-cillin) and set it to automatically scan all incoming and outgoing email messages and attachments. This way you protect your own computer, and make sure you don’t forward any infected messages to your friends and family.

The most important thing you have to realize is that viruses cannot get on your computer by themselves. You do have to put them there by opening files that can contain the harmful viruses. They could wipe out your hard drive, which could be detrimental for you if you have important files stored there and for which you don’t have a back up disk.

If you do get a virus on your computer, you don’t have to panic. If a virus is active in the memory, the anti-virus software may not be able to detect it. If you really want to make sure your computer doesn’t have a virus, turn it off and reboot it using a disk that you know doesn’t contain any virus such as your antivirus software’s recovery disk.

Learn how to<a href="http://www.reprint-content.com/Article/Remove-Blackworm-Virus/1581">remove blackworm virus</a> and how to block trojan horses, spyware, computer viruses, in the future. Large choice of <a href="http://www.reprint-content.com/Category/Security/149">Computer Security Articles</a>

FTP Servers and Security - Three methods that Secure FTP Servers use
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) has been the basis for file transfer since the dawn of the internet. The truly remarkable feature about FTP was that it was operating system independent. Files could be smoothly transferred between Unix, Windows and any other operating system. The other cool feature about FTP was that a simple validation mechanism consisting of a username and a password could be used to limit access to files. However, the actual data itself was transferred unencrypted and it was easy to intercept and listen in on an FTP connection. The internet itself had very minimal security built into it. Consisting of many smaller independent networks that stretched across the globe, the path that a data packet took to get from point A to point B was unpredictable. With the popularity of the internet, it became essential to be able to transmit many types of critical data with some amount of security. Netscape Communications solved the security problem on the internet by developing the Secure Sockets Layer Protocol (SSL) which used public key cryptography to encrypt data transmitted over the internet. This is still the widely accepted security mechanism and is implemented by all web browsers. FTPS Secure File Transfer Modifications to the FTP protocol were proposed to incorporate the use of SSL for encrypting file transfers over the internet. The modified mechanism is referred to as FTPS. In order to maintain backwards compatibility with the original file transfer protocol, an FTPS connection could either be explicit, where the connection between the client connection and the server starts out as regular FTP and then negotiates a secure connection, or implicit where the connection starts out being encrypted. HTTPS Secure File Transfer Since a web browser is already capable of public key cryptography, simple downloads and uploads can be performed directly through a web browser using the HTTPS protocol. This means that special FTP Client software is not required. SFTP Secure File Transfer The Secure Shell protocol also known as SSH was developed by Tatu Ylonen to enable secure access to remote shells using public key cryptography and replace Telnet and other non secure shells. This protocol has since evolved to also support a file transfer mechanism known as SFTP. The main advantage of this mechanism is that it did not require the opening of an additional data channel connection for transferring files. All of these three methods of secure file transfer are based on public key cryptography and all of them are equally capable of securing the transfer of critical files across the internet. The only drawback of these methods is that there is a data overhead associated with encrypting files. There is also a performance overhead associated with encrypting the files at the source and decrypting them at the destination. Because of this, system administrators sometimes use regular FTP for file transfers within a secured internal network. However, for transferring files over the internet, this is a small price to pay in exchange for the guarantee that sensitive files reach their destination without being intercepted or tampered with.

Okay, you now know about the three types of secure ftp servers. If you are looking for a secure FTP server to run on your windows system that can support all three secure file transfer mechanisms, be sure to visit <a href ="http://www.sysax.com/">http://www.sysax.com/</a> and download <a href ="http://www.sysax.com/download.htm?c=48#sysaxserv">Sysax FTP Server</a>