Anti Virus Software Versus Anti Spam Software

To clear up any confusion that exists between what is anti-spam software and what is anti-virus software, you need to know what the difference is between spam and a virus. Not too much to worry about here, it is relatively easy to explain.
Spam first
Spam consists mainly of email delivered to you at your email address that was neither requested or solicited and is often and mostly on topics you have absolutely no interest in. It is a cold calling marketing technique for the Internet and many unscrupulous businesses will scour the Internet looking for email addresses wherever they can find them, firing out an automatic email which can end up in your inbox in the vain hope that they will gain your interest.

Another form of spam is the chain mail emails you get that encourage you to send out multiple emails to your friends on the basis you might get bad luck if you don't forward then, receive some sort of reward or when you have been duped into thinking you are doing your friends a favour.

The worst kind of spam in my opinion is the malicious kind where people are actually trying to defraud you in some way, Nigeria is famous for being a source of the too good to be true financial offer which is typical of this type of email scam and often comes with the name Mr David as the source.

There are other forms of spam but these are the main core of what most people consider to be spam. So now consider whether the spammers of the world are winning the battle, when you find that statistically more than 50% of email traffic fits into the spam category and is forecast to take an even bigger percentage then you could not be blamed for believing that they are.

This leads me to believe that both as organisations and individuals we need to take steps to protect ourselves from the unsolicited garbage that arrives in our in boxes, exactly how we can do that I will be discussing after an explanation of what viruses are.

Viruses

So what is a computer virus exactly, the items that come under the general heading of a virus fall into 3 main categories:

• An actual virus


• A Trojan


• Computer Worms

Viruses are software programs that are sent to your PC with the sole intention of damaging either your PC or the network you are operating on. They are purely malicious and often it is difficult to fathom what inspires the people who put out such programs or to understand their motivation, from what I can see of things they really do not benefit by their actions in any way, they are just out to destroy and disrupt the activities of other users of the Internet.

A computer trojan on the other hand is one form of program that may benefit them when they manage to install it on your PC. On the face of it a Trojan provides what seems to be a beneficial service to you but behind the scenes it is accessing unauthorised parts of your system and recording information that could be used by a hacker to gain access to personal information such as bank account details and passwords as examples.

Computer worms are another form of malicious software and what a worm does is quite simply to reproduce itself by sending copies of itself to other computers on the same network. They effectively clog up the system you are using by consuming large quantities of bandwidth that should be available for genuine communication.

Whichever form of virus you encounter, you can be sure that they are undesirable and unwanted on your PC or network, they are in one way or another going to cause you problems.

Something else worth noting is that often banks will not guarantee your account if you are accessing their system with a PC that is not properly protected with some sort of recognized anti-virus software i.e. if someone accesses your account and transfers all your money and more out of the account, if you do not have suitable protective software in place the bank will deem you liable for your own loss. Something you should check in your terms and conditions, especially if you are involved in on line banking.