Spyware, Adware, and Antivirus

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Spyware, Adware, and Antivirus
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What is a Virus?

• A virus is software that attacks your computer.
• Some viruses can steal information from your
  computer.
• 1. Passwords, usernames, frequently used
  programs, and other information.
• Most viruses will attempt to damage files on your
  computer.
• Through damaging files a virus can cause you to
  lose valuable data.
• Also a virus can damage files necessary to your
  computers operation thereby making your computer
  act improperly or perhaps not at all.
• A small number of Viruses can even cause damage
  to your computers hardware.

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Who creates these Viruses?

• Viruses are often complicated programs, requiring
  a high level of computer programming skill to
  design. These programs dont occur by accident.
• Very often these Viruses are made by College
  students.
• The next group of likely candidates are
  disgruntled programmers.
• And lastly, some viruses come from oversees
  countries.

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Virus Prevention Procedures

• The first and most obvious solution is known as
  an Antivirus software. Here at Bergen Community
  College we use Symantec AntiVirus Corporate
  Edition.
• At BCC the virus definitions are updated
  automatically and regularly, so you dont need to
  be concerned about how often your antivirus is
  updated.
• Our Antivirus software actively tries to keep
  your system free of viruses through something
  call File System Real-time Protection. This
  feature constantly monitors files that are
  accessed or modified on your system.
• Your e-mails are actively checked by the server
  before you receive them. The server will stop any
  known viruses before the e-mail is sent to your
  computer.

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Virus Prevention Procedures Continued

• 4. We do not stop any e-mails, however, we do
  not forward any infected Files.
• You will receive an e-mail, but the portion of
  the e-mail that was detected as having a virus
  will be quarantined.
• People often get nervous when they receive this
  message, however, it is a good sign because it is
  a sign that our system is working properly.
• However, once you receive this e-mail if it does
  not contain any useful information then we do
  suggest that you delete them.
• 5. You can also run a scan of your computer to
  make sure that you are clean of viruses.
• You only need to do this if you suspect that you
  have a virus.
• If you want to be very thorough and make sure
  that your computer is clean even absent symptoms,
  I would suggest that scanning once a month is
  sufficient.
• In order to scan your computer do the following
• As I said earlier the virus definitions are
  updated automatically, but to see how your
  definitions are do the following.

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Adware

• Hidden advertisements which are usually
  associated with internet popups.
• They can sometimes change your homepage and
  search engines.
• Two examples of adware would be weather.com and
  gator.

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Spyware

• Spyware tracks where you go on the internet.
• Spyware can open access to your PC to outside
  Hackers.
• Spyware can steal Passwords and User information
  when you log into internet sites and secured
  pages.

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Preventing and Removing Spyware and Adware

• The most important thing to do is to never agree
  to install anything from the internet on your
  Computer.
• Some Spyware and Adware is in the form of
  Cookies, so deleting the cookies and offline
  files is a good way to clear up the ones that
  come in this form.
• Often Spyware will appear as a program on your
  computers add/remove programs option in the
  control panel. From there you can remove some
  known forms of Adware and Spyware.

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What is OIT doing to Help?

• We recently started using a program called
  Webroot to clean computer systems of Spyware from
  computer systems at the college.
• It will not be installed on all computers, and
  will instead be used by OIT to clean out systems
  that are infected with Spyware.
• Once installed an icon for it will remain on the
  system tray which will allow users to run a scan
  of there system when ever they feel it is
  necessary.

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Other Removal Software

• There are some other programs available that
  search your computer for known forms of
  spyware/adware and remove them.
• However, here at Bergen we have decided to use
  Webroot and CANNOT have other spyware/adware
  removal programs installed.
• Furthermore, with these third party programs
  there is always the danger that they themselves
  will give your computer adware or spyware.

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Questions?