With flu season quickly approaching many are taking precautions for their health, but are we the only ones who have to worry about getting sick? Computer viruses are always a risk as well. Unfortunately putting Germ-x on your keyboard won’t keep it from getting a virus.

According to Viruslist.com the top virus for last month was known as “NetWorm.Win32.Kido.ih”. It was spread to 41,033 computers during the last month alone.
Anti-virus software can help, but isn’t all 100 percent fail proof. The software can’t catch everything just like our immune systems can’t stop all infectious bacteria.

Many students can probably remember last year when a virus hit Tech computers and was spreading via network, but mainly by thumb drives going from computer to computer. To this day it is a good idea to scan your thumb drive on a regular basis to make sure it is clean and has no virus as there are still remnants of things roaming around the Tech network.

When thinking of anti-virus software a lot of mainstream names come to mind like Norton, Avast, and Symantec. However all of these cost money and to the average college student looking to save what little paycheck he gets there are free solutions.

A good anti-virus software that offers both a paid and free version is AVG. This software does release a free version with no limits, and gets a daily update from its maker Grisoft.
Of course that doesn’t make this software perfect. One can update his computer every second of every day and still catch a virus that maybe others haven’t detected yet.

There are plenty of ways to avoid viruses too. The most blunt and honest suggestion is to stay off porn sites. They are often crawling with adware and spyware.

Having an ad with a naked woman pop up when your computer is being used on the projector during a presentation doesn’t get you bonus points either.

Other than that, the main tip is to scan your computer regularly. If you don’t turn it off every night then leave it scanning when you go to bed.

One last thing to remember is who is in the most danger, and that is Windows users. People who run Macintosh OS, Linux, or Free BSD are far less likely to get a virus. People running Windows are the most common target simply because it is the most widespread operating system available. (Shocker after what a horrible system Vista was).

So if you are running another operating system, you still want to take precautions, but rest easy because you aren’t the target of that person living in his mom’s basement making a virus.