A recent, major hindrance to efficiency on PCs has been the massive increase in fake antivirus and antispyware programs. These web pages or applications purport to have found security problems on your computer, and often intrusively insist that you pay to activate their full functionality to fix "the problem" they have reported. This is nothing more than technological blackmail. Though some of the items reported may, in fact, be real issues (the existence of cookie files in your web browser file folders, the existence of old entries in the Windows Registry for programs previously uninstalled, etc.) these items may not even be a real threat to your computer or data. The application itself can use many resources on your computer, display pop-up ads, and even install other applications without your knowledge or approval.
Microsoft has an article describing this threat as well as the best practices for avoiding the problem:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/antivirus/rogue.aspxBest practices include:
- using a strong firewall solution
- using antispyware and antivirus software on your computers
- keeping current with security patches.
The maintenance measures of these best practices are automated by the systems at C&G Consulting for our Managed Network Service clients.
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