In computer news this week:

Lead: The biggest mistake you can make when you return from vacation

August is the biggest vacation month of the work year; many major companies shut down for a couple weeks; Europeans migrate to the beaches; seems like everything slows down. You stop the paper and the mail, tell your neighbors you'll be gone for a few weeks, lock everything up, remember to set the sprinkler system, and of course remember to turn off and unplug your computer so it won't be subject to an electric surge during a thunderstorm.

You have a great vacation, come home, wave at the neighbors, and then make the biggest mistake most people make with their computer. They turn it on and immediately go the check the dozens or even hundreds of emails they know will be waiting for them. And this is exactly what the virus writers of August knew that the vast majority of people would do; like lemmings rushing to the sea, millions of Americans rush to their email.

This August was the worst virus infection month in the history of the internet - mainly caused by the blaster and the sobig worm viruses, not to mention the klez and other viruses that have been around a long time now. Preying on people's addiction to email, virus writers launched their biggest effort to date in August. People returned from vacation by the millions, checked their email first of all, and got infected by viruses.

The first thing you should do when you return from vacation is turn your computer on, and then update your antivirus program. Don't open your email at all - this is usually a completely separate function. Normally when you open your web browser - be it explorer - netscape - or one from the ISP you use - your anti-virus program should automatically start and update itself. This might take a few minutes - but believe me - it could be the best few minutes you've ever spent - in terms of safeguarding yourself and protecting your computer.

Let me give you my own vacation example. I went on a series of minivacations in August/September, and the longest I was on vacation was 8 days. When I was on vacation I deliberately stayed away from all computers and computer news. But when I got home and started up my computer, the first thing I did was update my antivirus program, and by the time it took I could tell there had been a lot of virus activity while I was gone. There are many antivirus programs out today, and at some time I think I've used them all. Panda, Norton, McCaffe, dozens of others; the most important thing is that you use one of them.

After updating my antivirus program, I opened Outlook which is the email program I use with my current ISP Earthlink, instead of using their own hokey email.

I had 188 emails waiting for me; about 80% were spam, and at least a third of these contained attachments which I knew had contained viruses which my antivirus program had neutralized. I could look at all these virus attachment emails and see the same file, same file size, same date, in all of them. Some of the emails were from strangers, some from people I email that I know had been infected by these viruses.

A few days later I read the article about the teenager who had been caught modifying one of the August viruses and re-releasing it under his own name. His parents said that he was being persecuted and being made an example of.

What should be done to virus writers who knowingly write and release viruses that infect millions of computers, cost people and companies millions of dollars in downtime and lost data? Ask anyone who's been hit by a virus - they'll give you an earful.

For Raw Bytes, This is Frank Delaney

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