Viruses
News: UCL has site licences for a number of anti-virus products. For most of our users, we recommend F-Secure Anti-Virus, which is easy to install and is able to keep itself up-to-date without you having to intervene.
Download the latest version of F-Secure Anti-Virus from the following link (you will be promted for your UCL username and password):
Anti-virus software is freely available to all UCL staff and students here, and our licences allow for the software to be used on home computers too. Both F-Secure and Sophos Anti-Virus products for Windows and Macs automatically download the latest 'signature' update at least once a day keeping your product up-to-date. If you receive a warning message that your virus files are out of date and your machine has not been *off *for a few days then your anti-virus program is not working properly.
N.B. If you're a user of an IS managed computer, then you should not try to install this software - your machine is already protected.
Unfortunately, however dutifully you keep your anti-virus software up-to-date, you may still fall foul of a new, hitherto unknown virus. Most a/v packages look for particular patterns, and will not identify a new virus until they have been taught the new pattern. What can you do? Here are some suggestions for staying virus-free:
- Don't open attachments people send you without knowing what they contain.
- Don't download software, games, screensavers from the Internet, or even from a friend's computer. Be especially wary at Christmas when more of these things seem to be in circulation!
