Guest Post: 5 Myths About Digitally Transmitted Diseases

Our friends in the security business have put together a great piece on the 5 biggest myths surrounding things your computer can pick up during your travels through the interweb. Are you safe online?

There is a lot of FUD surrounding malware these days. The latest research tells us that there are now over 70000 new pieces of malware released every day. Unfortunately it’s your preconceptions about malware that’s putting you at the most risk for infection for a cyber transmitted disease.

1. It won’t happen to me. Sadly, malware can happen to anyone.  And it doesn’t discriminate against operating systems. So if you think you are immune because you have a Mac, think again.
2. I only did it once. One click is all that is needed to pick up a malicious virus. While e-mail attachments are still a potential source of infection, there are many other ways for malware to get into your computer. Infected web pages, and infected ads are a more common way to catch a virus. Think twice before you click.
3. If I had been infected, I would know right? Wrong. Not all malicious attacks show symptoms right away. Modern malware writers are clever. They code their viruses to make sure that they work unnoticed in the background.
4. I only visit clean sites. Just because you aren’t surfing pornographic content doesn’t mean you don’t have to worry. Surprisingly most serious adult sites are professionally run and secured and current with patches. Increasing incidents are coming from perfectly legit sites.
5. The protection I use is 100% safe. Nothing is 100% safe, but the best way to ensure complete endpoint protection is to use multiple layers of defense. Make sure you pick a solution that has application whitelistingcapabilities. Also, because anti-virus programs are reactive, meaning they respond to only known threats, it won’t catch zero day threats. Also, be careful of free anti-virus—they are often missing features like firewalls or anti-spam filters.