Security While Using MSN Messenger

MSN Messengers, renamed recently as the Live Messenger is one of the most popular targets of hackers, trojan virus writers and others with malicious intent of selfish motives of profit. MSN Messenger are very viral, making it one of the fastest ways for viruses to spread across the internet. An action, as simple as a click and get your website infected with these viruses.

Most of these viruses spread as simple messages. For example, you could see a chat from a friend which says "Do I look fat in this?" followed by a link to a picture or a file sharing request. Upon clicking on this link, a trojan virus will be downloaded to your computer and it will continue sending these links to your friends in your contact list. Thus, these viruses spread really quickly into the computers of innocent users.

The common symptoms of a computer virus infection are:

• Slower execution of common tasks.
• Pop-ups and unwanted spam advertisements
• Inability to change system settings.
• Deactivation of your Anti-virus, if any.
• Slower access to the internet
• High memory and internet data usage even when the computer is idle

 

There are a lot of ways to protect yourself from the onslaught of these viruses. Some of them these being:

• Do not click on suspicious links.
• Always keep your anti-virus up to date
• Scan your computer frequently
• Remove unused software frequently.
• Use a pop-up blocker

While using a messenger, it is important to have a second thought while clicking on links in chats because they maybe virus infected links. It may cause you not only loss of data and security, it can also be responsible for loosing your reputation amongst friends and business clients. They may block you for sending them spam without you ever knowing.

 

If you are already infected, then ask your friends to tell you the exact text which your account is sending them as spam and a simple google search or one of those specific Messenger virus sites will be able to get a quick fix.