VIRUS PROTECTION: Virus protection, anti virus      protection, and virus scanner with every account.

A computer virus is a program that attacks a computer, generally intended to cause damage to the infected computer. They're called "viruses" because they share some of the same traits as biological viruses--where one computer can pass the virus to another just like the common cold passes from person to person. Some viruses can literally shut down a company's whole operation. Other computer viruses are harmless. Unfortunately, many viruses cause huge problems for individual users as well as large companies.

A computer virus, like its biological cousin, is not a self-contained living thing. The virus has to piggyback on a program or document in order to get executed on a computer. Once it's running, it can infect other programs and documents on the host computer.


No single technique offers complete virus protection against computer viruses. There are, however, several steps you can take to protect yourself from viruses carried by email:

• Know where your email is coming from. Be especially careful of email from unknown sources.
• Be careful of attachments to your email. Be especially careful of executable attachments that end in .exe, .pif or .vbs among others and never open attachments that you aren't completely sure of.
• Make sure your email software is NOT set up to auto-run email attachments.
• Email addresses can be spoofed, which means it can appear to have been sent from a different address than it really comes from. Don't automatically trust email from an address you recognize.
• Install virus scanning software on your computer and keep it updated.
• Make sure your computer's operating system is up-to-date with the latest virus protection security upgrades.
• And if the worst happens and you are infected, make sure you have backups of your data files.

Every email hosting or website hosting account at connect.net also includes free email virus protection services that have multiple delivery options and the ability to "quarantine" infected or suspicious files before they get to your computer. These virus filters can have custom definitions for each user on the account.