One hears a lot these days about computer viruses. It’s basically impossible to have anything to do with computers and not hear weekly stories of woe. Most people have heard and shuddered at all the scary terms: trojan, worm, exploit, and so on. But what are they? And should you really care?

The answer is that at some level, you really have to. The threats posed by ever more sophisticated viruses are real, and here to stay. Some of these infections propagate in devious technical ways, but the sad truth is that many of them rely on tricking users into forwarding them manually. Email is the number one method of virus attack.

This brings us to the second computer menace: spam. Unsolicited emails have moved from being a nuisance a couple of years ago to becoming a real problem. Time, effort and internet bandwidth are used up in huge amounts as the quantity of spam mail mounts up. It is now reckoned that two out of every three mails sent are spam.

Fortunately, the methods available to protect one’s IT systems are now very sophisticated. A decent firewall on your internet connection will prevent remote attackers from accessing your systems. Anti-virus software can be set up to download updates automatically to protect against the latest threats. And message filtering can be applied to remove known spam mails before they ever hit your systems.

It is easy to ignore the potential effects of these threats. But in reality it is quite easy to put protection in place, and there is no doubt that you will wish you had if you do become infected. Dean & Hilton can advise on all aspects of these protections, including an assessment of your current systems. The peace of mind that comes from knowing that you are already well protected may be worth the call alone.

Click here for a case study on email filtering, here for more details about email filtering and here for anti-virus solutions.