My firewall may be effective at blocking some attacks and offering a certain amount of protection. But a firewall does not guarantee that your computer will be attacked. In particular, a firewall offers little to no protection against viruses. However using a firewall in conjunction with other protective software and safe practices will strengthen resistance to attacks. Anti-virus software details vary between packages but basically it scans files on your computer’s memory for certain patterns that may indicate an infection, looking for signatures, or definitions, of known viruses. Authors for viruses are continually being updated and released, so it’s important you have the latest definitions installed so the software can tackle any threat new or old. Each virus software has its own method of response once it locates a virus, and the action may vary according to when it finds the virus either during an automatic or a manual scan. Most software produces a dialog box alerting you if it has found a virus and asks whether you want it to clean the file or remove it. Some software may attempt to remove the virus without first asking. A good user should familiarize themselves with the features so they know how to handle such a
My firewall may be effective at blocking some attacks and offering a certain amount of protection. But a firewall does not guarantee that your computer will be attacked. In particular, a firewall offers little to no protection against viruses. However using a firewall in conjunction with other protective software and safe practices will strengthen resistance to attacks. Anti-virus software details vary between packages but basically it scans files on your computer’s memory for certain patterns that may indicate an infection, looking for signatures, or definitions, of known viruses. Authors for viruses are continually being updated and released, so it’s important you have the latest definitions installed so the software can tackle any threat new or old. Each virus software has its own method of response once it locates a virus, and the action may vary according to when it finds the virus either during an automatic or a manual scan. Most software produces a dialog box alerting you if it has found a virus and asks whether you want it to clean the file or remove it. Some software may attempt to remove the virus without first asking. A good user should familiarize themselves with the features so they know how to handle such a