Security Software Updates and Scans

At work, I quite often get computers that have infections on them. A lot of the time these computers have Antivirus and/or Antispyware protection on them. Yes, some even have Spyware Doctor on it.

It doesn’t matter what security program you have on your computer, their ability to protect your computer is restricted if you don’t do three simple things: Update the security software, run a quick weekly scan and run a monthly full scan. While daily updates are usually enabled by default, scheduled scans are usually left to the user to set up.

Some security programs update invisibly in the background, and you may receive a little pop up when the update is done. Some programs like AVG 7.5, announce that they are downloading updates and interrupt whatever you are doing, so it’s no surprise that people hit cancel when it appears. Updating your security software daily is essential. Not only does it protect you from the latest nasties, it’s often quite hard to update your security software after you have been badly infected by a parasite you want to remove.

The next thing you should do is a weekly quick scan. Some people find this disruptive, but good security software will scan quietly in the background without much of a performance cost. A weekly quick scan is useful to find something that may have stowed away on your computer. Schedule a quick scan to run once a week, preferably at time when you not using your computer.

The next thing you want to do is schedule a monthly full scan. Quick scans just look in the places parasites like to live but a full scan, scans everything. Full scans take a few hours to complete depending on how much you have on your hard drive.

Doing daily updates and running a weekly quick scan and a monthly full scan will help keep your computer parasite free. Take a look at your security software documentation to find out how to schedule daily updates and weekly and monthly scans.

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