How to protect your PC from viruses

A few minutes of prevention is better than several hours of frustration and lost data. Today, a worm or virus can arrive on anyone's machine through e-mail. Before you lose a day's work to the latest malicious virus, follow these precautions.

Download Microsoft's Outlook Security Patch. If you haven't already installed it, download the Outlook 98 Security Patch or the Outlook 2000 Security Patch (which requires Office 2000 Service Release 1a). Please note that this patch does not include Outlook Express. Don't open attachments. One way to prevent virus infections is not to open attachments. Even if the e-mail is from a known source, be careful. A virus may take the mailing list from an infected computer and send out new messages with a destructive payload attached. Always scan an attached file for viruses before you open it. And unless it's a file or an image you are expecting, delete it. Stay informed. Did you know that there are virus and security alerts almost every day? Keep up-to-date on breaking viruses and solutions by bookmarking our Virus Alert Topic Center. Get protected. If you don't already have antivirus software on your machine, acquire some now. If you're a home or individual user, do a search at www.google.com and for "antivirus" software and to learn more about the the top antivirus packages. If you're on a network, check with your network administrator first. If you're not sure if your existing antivirus software is up-to-date, scan your system to find out. Scan your system regularly. If you're just loading antivirus software for the first time, it's a good idea to let it scan your entire system. It's better to start with your PC clean and free of virus problems. Often, the antivirus program can be set to scan each time the computer is rebooted or on a periodic schedule. Some apps scan in the background while you are connected to the Internet. Make it a regular habit to scan for viruses. Update your antivirus software. Now that you have virus protection software installed, make sure it's up-to-date. Some antivirus protection programs have a feature that will automatically link to the Internet and add new virus detection code whenever the software vendor discovers a new threat.