My OperaDon't Trust Your Internet Service Provider For Your Only Virus Protection
Wednesday, August 27, 2008 4:05:18 AM
I spoke to a woman the other day. She told me she had a Trojan Horse on her computer and couldn't get rid of it. I asked her what virus program she was using and she told me her ISP handled her virus protection. She used to have Avast, but signed up for the virus protection offered by her ISP and removed the program. That was when she got the virus.
It's alright if you have your ISP provide you with a front line virus defense, but you also need to have a virus protection program on your computer to hopefully, virus programs aren't always 100%, catch any viruses that get by the ISP's virus protection program.
Personally, I don't trust my ISP to handle my virus protection. For one thing I don't know what program they are running and for another, I don't know how often the virus signatures get updated.
Even Symantec's Norton virus protection program is vulnerable to attack. Their Live Update module is subject to being changed into a virus. This happened to me once when I was using Norton virus protection. The program caught the virus. The virus deleted the Live Update module and became the Live Update module. Had I tried to update my virus signatures I would have released the virus onto my computer.
When this happened, I immediately removed Norton and installed another virus protection program that didn't have this vulnerability. Viruses can disable your virus protection program. Rootkits can do the same thing, as well as take over your system.
So the choice is yours. To accept the virus protection service from your ISP or use another program like Avast. As for me, I'll stick with Avast.
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
My time is up; I thank you for yours.
