This weeks article is late. The short version of the story is as follows. On Friday the week before last I wanted to install some new software. I needed to disable my anti-virus software to complete the installation – and then forgot to re-enable it. Since I seem to be in the address books of about 13,000 readers of this weekly email – I usually receive about 8 infected emails each day – which the anti-virus software intercepts. But when it’s disabled it doesn’t intercept much!

By Saturday morning the system collapsed into a heap of disparate bits and bytes. By Monday afternoon I had recovered most of the work onto my backup machine – but the original system remained stubbornly comatose. The past week has been a challenge, and I now finally am back – having lost only the previous weeks emails.

My system is now covered with a large rubber shield which consists of anti-virus software to trap anything that does get in, as well as from infected disks; a personal firewall to prevent anyone connecting to my machine while I am on the Net; and some tracing software so that I can track the source of any email or virus. Sounds like overkill, doesn’t it? But allow me to share a few things I found out this past week.

Let’s start out with the firewall. In real life a firewall is a thick, fire retardant wall – usually between your garage and your home – that will prevent the spread of a fire from one location to another. A firewall in the personal computer context is conceptually similar. In my case the software firewall I use is ZoneAlarm Pro – and it monitors every single byte that travels between my PC and the Internet. As soon as an application on my PC tries to send any info down that telephone [or LAN or ISDN] line – Zone Alarm pops up and asks me if it’s OK. This has been a sobering experience because I found that a few programs seem to want to connect – when I can’t see why they should. In this way Zone Alarm can stop ‘trojans’ from infiltrating your system. But imagine my surprise earlier this afternoon when Zone Alarm popped up a notice that some outside computer was trying to get into my system. That computer was at the address 217.57.19.30

That number probably doesn’t mean too much to you – and it didn’t mean a great deal to me either. But that’s why we have English names for websites. It’s a heck of a lot easier to remember www.crashproof.co.za than it is to remember 196.34.233.67 – and I’m not even sure that that number is correct!

This is where the tracing software kicks in. Poke that 217.57.19.30 number into NeoTrace Pro – and after a few seconds it draws a map showing the route of the call – and where the intruding computer sits. It also lets me identify every link in the chain – Cape Town – London – Rome – Venice - right into the ISP of the intruder. So why, do you think, someone in a small village in Italy is trying to get into my computer while I am online downloading emails? And more importantly, how honorable are his/her intentions? And how long has this person being getting into my machine in the past? Interesting questions that worry the hell out of me and should scare the heck out of you! Simply having that single piece of information was worth the US$ 29-95 investment last week. It’s also allowed me to identify a few strange website locations as well!

There’s a bunch of good anti-virus software available – but you need to regularly update them all. My weekly backup routine [every Friday afternoon when all reasonable people are drinking beer] now includes an update of all the protection software I use. Currently my machine has Nortons Anti-Virus, Invircible and McAfee! You shouldn’t need all 3 but you probably don’t get as much mail as I do – from such a wide group.

Which reminds me – very time you get a notice from someone warning you about a virus – have a look at www.antivirus.com and check out the info for yourself. Interesting stuff – for example this latest SULFNBK.EXE email is simply a hoax – and here we are desperately warning everyone who has ever had the misfortune to send us an email!

Here are a few simple guidelines to keep you out of trouble:

Never connect to the Internet and never insert a strange disk into any drive. If you do this it’s almost impossible to get a computer virus. [If you don’t yet know what a computer virus really is – it is a clever piece of program code that normally arrives on your machine as an email attachment and it jumps into action the moment you open either the email or the attachment. It then copies itself into some hidden place on your PC, and the most recent ones immediately try and email copies of themselves to all the folk in your address book. Chances are that you won’t see this happening in the background. But all your friends and colleagues will!

Never, never, never open an unexpected attachment from anyone. Not even your mother! Chances are that this has been sent to you by a virus. This should keep you reasonably free of challenges – but it’s still a long way from safe.

Get anti-virus software. This will detect when you receive a virus and will usually help you kill the little bugger. [I personally feel that we should bring back the death penalty for the creators of these malicious bits of code because they cost us business owners an arm and a leg to fix.]

Get a firewall. This will stop people messing with your machine while you’re online.

Get tracing software so that you can chase anyone who maliciously tries to get into your machine. Simply posting their details to the www.hackerwatch.org site will start to slow them down.

Backup your system at least once a week. The entire system! The value of my data exceeds the hardware value of my equipment by miles. For many of us our entire business is inside this clever little box.

That’s the end of this weeks tirade! Please protect yourself, or it will just be a matter of time before your system also gets wiped out.

© Peter Carruthers, www.petesweekly.co.za

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