It has been estimated that only one third of home users have an up to date anti virus product installed on their PC's.The many home users without an up to date anti virus program installed, are helping in spreading of today's viruses, Trojans and worms!
To help remedy this situation, in part, Microsoft have now released FREE: Malicious Software Removal Tool ...
So What Is Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool..? -----------------------------------------------------------
January 2005 sees debut of a FREE security tool from Microsoft. This new tool will be updated on a monthly basis to include information about recent malicious software threats...
Here is what Microsoft have to say in their own words:
Microsoft has released Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool to help remove specific, prevalent malicious software from computers that are running Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP, or Microsoft Windows 2000. The Malicious Software Removal Tool supersedes all virus-cleaner tools that were previously released by Microsoft. You can download Malicious Software Removal Tool from Microsoft Download Center. You can also run an online version of tool from Malicious Software Removal Tool Web site on Microsoft.com.
To run Malicious Software Removal Tool from either location, you must log on to your computer with an account that is a member of Administrators group. If you are running Windows XP, you can also run Malicious Software Removal Tool from Windows Update Web site or by using Automatic Updates.
...In practice, on first Tuesday in every month, if you have Automatic Updates switched ON. The new tool will download and run a scan on your computer to see if there is any malicious software running...
The software does not install itself, and runs in "quiet mode" so that you will not actually see it running! When it has finished its scan - software then removes itself. For those of you concerned about privacy issues, you will be asked to accept an end user licence agreement (EULA) before scan takes place.
The software also creates a log file, more information on this in next section.
This tool is updated monthly and contains a list of known threats and any variants.
It is NOT a substitute for having an up to date anti virus product installed, BUT it will help to reduce amount of infected PC's connected to Internet.
Far too many folks have "infected" PC's and just are NOT aware of problems this is causing rest of us...
As already stated, this tool will be updated to include new malicious threats as they appear. The initial version of Malicious Software Removal Tool - version January 2005 - includes: