Windows Support

Virus Prevention Tips

Viruses -- especially those borne by email messages -- are becoming more and more clever every day, so it is very important for all computer users to be diligent and careful to protect against them. Although the UW has excellent virus-scanning defenses in place on the central email servers, these are not always foolproof, and sometimes viruses can make their way through to our desktops.

Where to Get Anti-Virus Software

The first step is to ensure that you have a working virus scanner on your computer. As UW students, faculty and staff, we are lucky to have unlimited, free access to Sophos Endpoint Anti-Virus software. The university's site license allows everyone to install Sophos, even on personally-owned computers at our homes. Sophos runs silently in the background while you're working on your computer. It continuously examines the programs you run and the files you open for signs of a virus infection, and can repair or delete any suspicious objects it finds. But make sure to keep your virus definitions up-to-date, as new viruses appear almost every day. For more information about Sophos, and to download your copy of the software,
click here.

Safe practice with Email Attachments

The best defense against viruses is a sense of awareness about the dangers in opening email attachments. Here is a set of rules you can use to determine whether or not an email is safe to open:

1. Is it coming from an email address that I recognize and trust?
2. Does the subject line make sense in the context of the sender?
3. Am I expecting to receive an attachment from the sender?
4. What kind of attachment is it? Word documents (.DOC & .DOCX) and PDFs are common and generally harmless; however, there are very few legitimate reasons to send programs (.EXE & .COM) or scripts (.BAT, .VBS) in emails, so avoid them!

For more information, click here

What If My Computer Has a Virus?

If Sophos software detects a virus on your computer, it will delete, repair or "quarantine" any infected files. However, you may also want to do the following to ensure that the virus hasn't spread to other files:

1. Update your virus definitions manually by going to the VirusScan Console application and selecting update now.
2. Perform a scan of your computer's disk(s) in Sophos Console.

Also, if you are ever presented with a dialog box asking whether or not it's okay to install a certain piece of software, please consider very carefully before clicking the Yes button. Anything that pops up without you requesting it can be dangerous (like a virus), a privacy risk (like spyware), or just plain annoying (like adware).

One final tip: If you want to avoid spyware altogether in the future, we suggest using a web browser other than Internet Explorer. Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. Both of these browsers are ranked as the most secure, up-to-date browsers.

Further assistance

If you are stuck on a problem and can't solve it yourself, feel free to contact UW IT.