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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