Dear Editor,

Ironically,

the day the article "A virus that can spread in a flash" appeared in

The Phnom Penh Post (March 31, 2009) I had a run-in with the tech

specialist at my office about using my flash drive in company

computers. After a long drawn-out discussion, I finally produced my

laptop and ran a virus scan to show him that the drive was virus-free

and he agreed to let me use it on the office computers.

He

went on to show me that the office computers were equipped with three

different kinds of anti-malware, anti-spyware, anti-viral software.

Of

course they were all pirated copies, and when I returned home I plugged

the drive into my laptop again my anti-viral program informed me that

the drive had 15 viruses on it; and he was worried about me giving him

a virus!

As stated in your article, most anti-virus programs update themselves from a library of known viruses.

Of

course if you are in Asia, you may acquire a virus different from those

in Europe or North America, but if you are an actual paying customer

you can usually count on being protected. My current program, for

example, often encounters rootkits, viruses and malware that it cannot

fix, but as a paying customer I simply click "send log" and get a

solution from their tech people in a couple hours.  

I agree

that turning off the autorun features on your computer is a good way to

protect yourself from "flash spread" viruses and that having more than

one anti-viral program is a good idea, but an even better idea is to

use genuine software, with an actual serial number and an actual

activation code.  

Too often buying pirated anti-viral programs from the market is simply buying a false sense of security.

Zac Kendall

Phnom Penh

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