It was a bad week for JOHN HARRIS after he discovered that a virus had infected his computer.

Last week, my computer was successfully invaded by a virus for the first time in 15 years.

The last time I was hit was in 1993 when a techie mate “helped” me restart my computer with a floppy disk containing a boot virus that infected my hard drive.

After three days of disruption and more floppy disk backups than I care to recall, I managed to get my computer back on track.

This time the choice was much easier: Either fiddle about for several hours trying to extract the nasty software – possibly without complete success - or blow the hard drive away with a reformat and then reinstall Windows.

I tucked away my nightly backup files, powered up a spare computer and bade my old machine adieu.

Ironically, the bug that slugged my PC goes by the name of Antivirus 2008, a fact that was glaringly obvious because it pasted its moniker on my computer desktop. On a garish blue background, a notice declared that my computer had been infected by a virus and that I should download an anti-virus program to get rid of it.

Talk about rubbing salt in the wound!

Purists might argue that Antivirus 2008 is not a true virus: It is variously described as a Trojan, malware, spyware and “badware”. It’s related to rogue security software that sneaks on to the PC to threaten that spyware or malware is installed on the system. Some blackmailing invaders even seek to extort money before they will allow access to your system again.

Antivirus 2008 is in a class of counterfeit antispyware programs that purport to help protect your computer from Internet nasties: However, once installed, it invites its mates around for a party by surreptitiously downloading other malware programs from the web.

I’m still not sure how AV08 got on to my PC: I can only assume it occurred when I erroneously clicked on one of the dozens of evil emails that appear in my inbox each day.

Two recent bogus bugs are a CNN Alert and the UPS Packet Delivery email: Both invite unfortunate consequences if you click on their attached contents.

I do know better, but perhaps my impatient personality got the better of my hard-earned caution as I ploughed through the morning emails one day.

Regardless of how it happened, I have paid a high price with days of disruption as I configured my spare PC to perform daily tasks while rebuilding my primary PC in the background.

Viruses and their cussing cousins have a serious impact on productivity: While I look back on floppy disk-borne invaders with near nostalgia, in their day, they succeeded in trashing hard drives and destroying data as effectively as today’s nasties.

The lesson is that you must be ever vigilant because disaster is only a mouse click away.

Now, please excuse me while I get back to installing software on my poor PC.

John Harris jharris@impress.com.au is managing director of Impress Media Australia..

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