Law #8: An out-of-date virus scanner is only marginally better than no virus scanner at all.
Virus scanners work by comparing the data on your computer against a collection of virus "signatures." Each signature is characteristic of a particular virus, and when the scanner finds data in a file, e-mail, or elsewhere that matches the signature, it concludes that it's found a virus. However, a virus scanner can scan only for the viruses it knows about. It's vital that you keep your virus scanner's signature file up to date, as new viruses are created every day.
The problem actually goes a bit deeper than this, though. Typically, a new virus will do the greatest amount of damage during the early stages of its life, precisely because few people will ...
Get Microsoft® Windows® XP Networking and Security Inside Out: Also Covers Windows 2000 now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
