Welcome to the ValleyNet Security Website

Antivirus

The common view of what a computer virus is actually falls into three different catagories: virus, Trojan Horse and worm. The more common form of a “virus” now is called a blended threat and will be a combination of two or all three.

Virus – a program or piece of code that is installed on a computer without the users knowledge. Viruses often are malicious in that they will attempt to delete or corrupt files on the host machine.

Worm – a program that will reproduce itself over a computer network through email or shared resources on a network.

Trojan Horse – a Trojan Horse program often masquarades as a benign program that can be insidious once it's installed. Most of the new Trojan Horse programs will leave a “backdoor” open on the host computer that an intruder can access whenever the host is on the network. Once an intruder has access to a host computer, they can steal files, passwords, financial information, even open and close the CD-ROM tray remotely.

We strongly recommend that all our subscribers install and keep up to date an antivirus program. Even though the Postini filtering system will stop viruses from coming into our network from the outside by email, it will not stop viruses that are received from other internet providers or free email accounts like AOL or Hotmail, infected floppies or CD's or from shared resources on a network. There are a number of good commercial products available and a partial list is included under links at the bottom of this page. A free antivirus program can be downloaded from the AntiVir website. AntiVir is updated as soon as new viruses are detected and the updates are free for personal use also.

Links

Symantec Security Scan