Protect Your Company - Protect Yourself
Importance of Virus Protection
By Suzzanne Stanford,
CCE CEW
"Imagine multiple email offers being sent from
your computer, attaching private random documents, using your company's
return address with your name as their representative. Your organization's
reputation is vulnerable and so are you as their employee!"
I've been battling with the results of two different
computer viruses over the last three weeks. They are malicious and
destructive. Although viruses have been around for a long time, this
is the first time I've been on the receiving end. Several large companies
in the computer industry recently sent mandatory warnings to all
of their employees out in the field. "Keep up with the latest virus
protection. Comply or face dismissal!"
Here's what happened to me and why virus protection
is important:
I work "out in the field". One day I opened my email
and there was a warning from Earthlink that my mailbox was full .
. . that all new incoming email would be rejected. Normally this
wouldn't be a problem but email is crucial to some of what I do for
my clients. I discovered that several people had a virus that was
going through their email address book, creating a simple message
and attaching "random documents" from their computer . . . over and
over and over. Imagine a virus snatching a random document from your
computer and forwarding it out to people in your address book. What
if that document is private? Within 2 hours of resetting my POP account
on Earthlink's server, there were 13MB of new documents. The documents
were copying themselves over and over and over. I tried to contact
each stranger, usually through their company website and warn them
that they had a virus. Even my cousin was involved. It's now been
8 weeks and the documents keep coming. The SirCam Virus?
Two weeks ago while travelling with my laptop I was
surprised to discover 600 angry email messages waiting for download.
The Code Red II virus? Actually we're still not sure if this was
a malicious act or a real virus. My alias forwarding address as "webmaster",
was being used by either a virus or a malicious person to send out
a bogus "special offer" to people at AOL . . . over and over and
over. The "Code Red II" virus uses a company's mail server if they
don't have specific protection for it. The email looked official
and directed people to our company website. It must have been very
bad because people were going to our site and hunting down the "opt-out" form.
Their messages were angry and not repeatable. I would attempt to
reach those who were threatening to take us to court. Some people
didn't believe me. We were forced to put a "Spam Mail Alert" on the
main page of our site linking to an explanation. It's been five days
since we've received an angry email from someone at AOL. We took
the Spam Alert off today. Is it over?
Fortunately I did not have a virus on my computer.
Now this is not saying much. Although I have protection I wasn't
downloading the updates. Some people are holding off and think it
can't happen to them. Not so. The viruses are escalating. They can
destroy your hard drive; are you backed up? Consider installing a
personal firewall. Imagine multiple email offers being sent from
your computer, attaching private random documents, using your company's
return address with your name as their representative. Your organization's
reputation is vulnerable and so are you as their employee.
Here are two companies that can help:
www.symantec.com and us.mcafee.com/default.asp.
Both sites have free virus checking service. For more information
go to www.yahoo.com and
search for "computer+virus". Good Luck! |