If you were not in the latter camp, which the majority of you were not, you should be aware of some precautions and resources that can help you sleep better at night.

What Is a Virus?
The first thing of which you should be aware is what exactly viruses are. A virus is a piece of programming code inserted into other programming to cause some unexpected and, for the unsuspecting end user, usually undesirable event. There are three main strains of viruses.

File infectors are viruses that attach themselves to executable files such as .exe, .com or .sys files. With file infector viruses, the virus is loaded when the infected file is loaded, until then, the virus lays dormant.

System or boot-record viruses attach to the executable code in the system area on a disk, either a fixed hard disk or a removable floppy diskette. The virus is triggered when the computer is started from one of these infected disks.

The newest and most common types of viruses are the "macro" viruses. These viruses are written in a particular application's macro language, such as Microsoft Word or Excel. While macro viruses are the most common, they tend to do less damage than the more traditional system, boot-record or file infector viruses.

Protect Your Firm
You will need to understand what types of viruses are out there, and how you can protect yourself and your firm or company.

The best protection against all viruses is to know the origin of each file or disk that you load into your computer. With the data exchange required between you and your clients, this is difficult at best. The steps listed below are what are considered to be the minimum level of protection to take to prevent your firm from being infected by a virus.

1. Install antivirus software on all of the firm's network servers and update the virus signature file on a monthly basis or as events dictate.

2. Install antivirus software on all workstations, laptop computers and stand-alone computers. The virus signature file should be updated on a monthly basis or as events dictate.
3. Scan all disks or files that originate outside of the firm, i.e., disks from clients, files downloaded from the Internet or files received through email.

4. Periodically scan your systems with your antivirus software.

5. When using Microsoft Office, you should ensure that the Office macro virus protection is turned on.

6. You should always choose Disable Macros or Do Not Open if you receive a Macro Dialog Protection Warning for a document you did not expect to contain macros, or if you receive the warning and you do not know the sender.

7. Train everybody in your firm on how to use the antivirus software on their machines and what to do if they receive an infected file or if their machines become infected.