PCA Forums

To my knowledge I havent had one virus (known to me) infect any of my PCs in the almost 6 yrs that I've toyed with PCs (although I've been e-mailed a couple in recent years, detected and deleted before opening too).

I continually hear about how sneaky some of these are and that many are undectable using modern anti-virus software. If that's true, then how would one know if and when you've been infected other than by some abnormal PC wierdness?

Hmmm, no one here has a clue? What....."just happens, can't be detected"?

Yes they're getting sneakier, but if you keep your anti-virus data files updated your software should detect any potential virus.

It's still possible for one to sneak through even so, so it's a good idea to schedule a full drive scan every month or so.

You also want to do a full drive scan if the computer starts acting wierd.

Also keep in mind that some modern viruses can't be eliminated by just doing a virus scan. Many of the new viruses hide copies of themselves and leave registry entries that forces the computer to re-install the virus even if you delete the infected files (some hide copies in the recycling bin where scanners usually can't touch them).

For this reason, if you find an infected file on your system, you should ALWAYS look up the details of the virus in your anti-virus product's online reference guide and get specific instructions for eliminating it. Sometimes you have to delete registry entries.

Modern AV software can detect nearly 100% of those viruses that are "in the wild" or widespread, those are less than 500 out of the 58.000 that are in todays AV virus definitions.

AV software needs the virus definitions to detect a virus, a new virus that is not in the definitions might slip through the net. Some AV software makers include features that should allow them to detect an unknown virus but those don't work reliable.
You could say they're undetectable as long as they're not in the AV definitions.

A virus will be found once it's in the virus definitions, that's why it is so important that you keep your definitions up-to-date.

I guess someone could program a virus that tries to shutdown your running AV software but that would take a lot of knowledge and work and is highly unlikely. A "good" virus spreads like wildfire to do as much damage as possible before it gets into the virus definitions.
It's not that easy creating a working virus, even with the viruskits you can find on the internet.

I see more danger in Trojans trying to disable your personal firewall.

To sum things up:
Don't worry to much about such a "ubervirus" cause it's highly unlikely that they'll spread into the wild (should they really exist) and infect your system before they're in your virus definitions, just make sure you keep them up-to-date. It is much more likely that you'll get caught by a new fast spreading virus that is not yet in your AV definitions (this is most likely the sorta "undetectable virus" they're talking about).

naturally another question comes to mind, what's your opinions then for "The BEST" Anti-Virus software? All I'm now using is the free stuff that comes with the OSs, nothing added otherwise.

I have been using Norton Anti Virus since the first day I logged onto the internet. It has never failed me and me being a creature of habbit it is the only thing I have ever used.

I've been using NAV since version 2.0 and I never had a problem with it. The newer versions have a setting that NAV will always check for new virusdefinitions when you're online and automatically download/install them in the background. I love this LiveUpdate feature. You'll still want to run LiveUpdate manually once a month or so to get the updates that require a reboot and thus won't be installed automatically in the background.

Is it the best ? I dunno, but definetly better than no AV software. It's almost always in the top three, depending on tests.

McAfee is also good in tests but I've never used it before so I can speak for it.

I use McAfee only because I do service work and McAfee 4.0 allows you to run an installed folder of the program from a CD on a machine that doesn't have it installed - handy for doing service work. NAV won't do that.

However I usually recommend NAV to my clients because it's simpler to setup, and the virus updates can be more easily automated than McAfee. Norton also has a more aggressive email virus scanner in my opinion.

Just so you know, I do not run a background scanner in my own computer. I only have McAfee installed for on demand scanning and I manually scan anything I download. I don't like having background apps running if I can help it, and Virus scanners are such resource hogs.

On my file server, however, I have NAV running in the background and have it setup to do full drive scans every week.

If you're a power user (and most people on this forum are) you're probably savy enough not to execute anything that could have a potential virus without scanning it first.

Will one copy of NAV install on more than one PC? There's 4 here now and not all programs will allow that.

EvilHorace you can buy one copy and install it on all your computers at least I have on the two computers I have.

Cool, thanks.