How do I protect my computer? Answer

What is a Trojan Horse? Answer

What are all these pop-up ads that keep coming up? Answer

Why is my home page in Internet Explorer going to some site I've never heard of? How do I fix it? Answer

How do I deal with e-mails that I think might be hoaxes? Answer

How do I protect my computer? See the information at Protecting Your Computer.

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What is a Trojan Horse? Trojan Horses are impostors--files that claim to be something desirable but, in fact, are malicious. A very important distinction between Trojan horse programs and true viruses is that they do not replicate themselves. Trojans contain malicious code that when triggered cause loss, or even theft, of data. For a Trojan horse to spread, you must, invite these programs onto your computers--for example, by opening an email attachment or downloading and running a file from the Internet. The PWSteal.Trojan is a Trojan.

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What are all these pop-up ads that keep coming up? These are adware which is unwanted advertising banners, pop-ups, pop-unders, etc., in your web browser.

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Why is my home page in Internet Explorer going to some site I've never heard of? How do I fix it? Your web browser has been "hijacked". This is a form of adware that forces your browser settings to redirect your home page to a site from which the creator derives revenue. You can try changing the Home Page in IE by going to the Tools Menu and choosing Internet Options. Change the home page back to your original choice. Click on Ok to save the changes. If this doesn't work, try running Spybot or Ad-Aware application to remove the adware.

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How do I deal with e-mails that I think might be hoaxes? Hoaxes usually arrive in the form of an email. Please disregard the hoax emails - they contain bogus warnings usually intent only on frightening or misleading users. The best course of action is to merely delete these hoax emails. Although it is possible to be emailed an infected executable file or document containing a macro virus, by simply reading your email, you will not get a computer virus. You would have to open the file attachment to actually get a virus. Therefore, precautions should be taken when dealing with such attachments. See St. Edward's email attachment policy for information on attachments that are automatically discarded because of their potential to carry viruses and worms.

If you receive notice of a virus via email, please forward it to the Help Desk at helpline@stedwards.edu so that it can be checked out. If it is a legitimate virus, you and the St. Edward's community will be notified.