Important: AOL® Safety and Security Center is no longer supported and does not receive security updates. Without up-to-date security protection, your computer is more vulnerable to online threats. To help protect your computer from viruses, spyware and hackers, it is important to go to http://safety.aol.com to upgrade to the latest security products from AOL.
Virus Protection Basics
FAQs
Virus Protection Basics
AOL® Safety and Security Center Virus Protection is not an Internet-based application program. Therefore you do not need to connect to the Internet to run a scan using the Virus Protection. However, you are advised to connect at least once a week to the Internet to receive updates for the Virus Protection.
AOL Safety and Security Center Virus Protection is designed to offer comprehensive security coverage to your computer. Virus Protection scans all your e-mail attachments downloaded through clients like Microsoft® Outlook® Express, Incredimail® etc. All AOL® e-mails are regularly scanned by AOL.
AOL Safety and Security Center Virus Protection offers comprehensive security coverage to your computer. AOL understands that compressed files like .zip or.cab may possibly contain viruses that can damage your computer. Owing to this, AOL Safety and Security Center Virus Protection is designed to scan compressed files.
Note: To customize your scan settings, on the AOL® Safety and Security window, click the Virus Protection tab on the left, then click Settings.
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FAQs
Differences Between Virus, Worms and Trojans
Virus Sent From My E-Mail
Virus Protection Scans Fewer Files Compared to Previous Scan
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Differences Between Virus, Worms and Trojans
About Viruses: A Virus is a program that is capable of replicating itself with little or no user intervention, and the replicated programs continue to duplicate. There is typically a piece of code that causes an unexpected, usually malicious, event (payload) to occur. Viruses are often disguised as games or images with clever marketing titles such as "Pictures of ME".
About Worms: A Worm is a virus that spreads by duplicating itself on other drives, systems, or networks. They may send copies of themselves to other computers across network connections, through e-mail, through an infected Web page, or through Instant Messenger and Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Some worms are differentiated as being @m or @mm, which signifies that their primary mode of distribution is either through electronic mail or mass-mail.
About Trojans: A Trojan horse is a program that either pretends to have, or is described as having, a set of useful or desirable features, but actually contains destructive programs. True Trojan horses are not technically viruses, since they do not replicate. Many viruses and worms, however, use Trojan horse tactics to initially infiltrate a system. Although Trojans are not technically viruses, they can be just as destructive. The term Trojan is often referred to non-replicating malicious programs, thus making a distinction between Trojans and Viruses.
About Virus Hoaxes: A Virus hoax is a misleading program usually in the form of a pop-up that frequently warns users of a virus presence, in spite of none being there. Virus hoaxes are more than mere annoyances. They may lead you to routinely ignore all virus warning messages, leaving you vulnerable to a genuine, destructive virus.
The next time you receive an urgent virus warning message, be sure to check the list of known virus hoaxes. A common hoax is theJdbgmgr.exe hoax. It describes an otherwise legitimate system file as being a virus that is not detected by McAfee® or Norton®. The file stays on the system for 14 days without exhibiting any activity before damaging the system. This file is displayed with a teddy bear icon and is often mistaken for a virus by many users.
To check the list of known virus hoaxes, please follow the directions below:
1. Go to the Website: http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id=hoaxes.
2. This will display a list of hoaxes. Click the name of the hoax to view its profile.
Warning: Never open an e-mail attachment unless you are sure of its content, even if it is from someone you know and trust.
Some of the common phrases used in these hoaxes are:
- If you receive an email titled [e-mail virus hoax name here], do not open it!
- Delete it immediately! It contains the [hoax name] virus.
- It will delete everything on your hard drive and [extreme and improbable danger specified here].
- This virus was announced today by [reputable organization name mentioned here].
- Forward this warning to everyone you know!
Remember that virus writers can use known hoaxes to their advantage. For example, AOL4 Free began as a hoax virus warning. Somebody then distributed a destructive Trojan attached to the original hoax virus warning! The lessons are clear:
- Always remain vigilant.
- Never open a suspicious attachment.
What is Not a Virus: The publicity that viruses have received has made it easier to blame any computer problem on a virus. Therefore it is important to know what viruses can and cannot cause. The following situations are not likely to be caused by a virus or other malicious codes:
- Hardware problems. There are no viruses that can physically damage computer hardware, such as chips, boards, and monitors.
- The computer beeps at startup with no display on the monitor screen. This is usually caused by a hardware problem during the boot process. Consult your computer documentation for the meaning of the beep codes.
- The computer does not register 640 kilobytes of conventional memory. This can be a sign of a virus, but it is not conclusive. Some hardware drivers such as those for the monitor or SCSI card can use some of this memory. Please consult with your computer manufacturer or hardware vendor to determine if this is the case.
- You have two antivirus programs installed and one of them reports a virus. While this could be a virus, it can also be caused by one antivirus program detecting the other antivirus program's signatures in memory.
- You are using Microsoft Word and Word warns you that a document contains a macro. This does not mean that the macro is a virus. For further information on a macro, please refer toMicrosoft Word Help under theHelp section in Microsoft Word.
- You are not able to open a particular document. This is not necessarily an indication of a virus. Try opening another document or a backup of the document in question. If other documents open correctly, the document may be damaged.
- The label on a hard drive has changed. Every disk is allowed to have a label. You can assign a label to a disk by using theDOS Label command.
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Virus Sent From My E-Mail
The most likely reason you are getting these returned mails is due to E-mail Spoofing. Spoofed e-mail is e-mail that appears to have originated from one source when it was actually sent from another.
Junk e-mailers frequently want their e-mail to appear to be sent from an address other than their own. This way the e-mail cannot be traced back to the original sender. Sometimes the e-mail goes to an invalid address, so it is returned to your address rather than to the e-mail address from which it was actually sent. It is exactly the same as if someone sent a letter via postal mail to another person and wrote your return address on the envelope instead of their own.
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Virus Protection Scans Fewer Files Compared to Previous Scan
While using AOL Safety and Security Center Virus Protection to scan for viruses, it may appear as though fewer files are checked compared to previous scans. For example, it may check 15,000 files when the previous scan checked 16,000 files. So what happened to the other 1000 files? There are several reasons why this may occur:
1. More drives were selected for the previous scan.
2. There was a CD in the CD-ROM drive during the previous scan that has since been removed.
3. Temporary files have been deleted since the previous scan.
You can be assured that AOL Safety and Security Center Virus Protection offers complete protection to your computer. For more information on how AOL protects your computer from viruses, please visit the AOL® Keyword: Safety.
Note: To customize your scan settings, launch the AOL Safety and Security window, click the Virus Protection tab on the left, then click Settings.
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