Bill Myers

The latest computer viruses making the rounds have caused and are continuing to cause a lot of damage on the internet.

Not only have the majority of legitimate email and ebusiness functions of the net been affected by a near collapse of the email delivery system, but more and more unprotected computers have succumbed to the virus - and are now acting as carriers replicating the virus to other computers.

If you haven't run a full system virus check in the past 72 hours, chances are pretty good that your computer could be sending virus laden emails to every person who you have either sent or received email from - and you'll never know it is going on.

That's one way this virus works - it sneaks into your computer, and unbeknownst to you, selects random emails from your in-box, adds the virus code, and then sends that message to every email address loaded on your computer.

The only way to stop this is to scan your computer for the most recent virus definitions, and remove them immediately. And then re-scan every few days to make sure you are not re-infected.

One of the best virus scanning and repair tools is free - I use it every few days and highly recommend it. It runs online, and will scan your entire computer, show you the results, and remove the viruses with your approval. Find it at http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

If you haven't already done so, make it a priority to run a virus check on your computer this weekend.