Viruses: Not always what they seem

In today’s complicated world of computer security, detecting viruses and other malware has become essential in keeping your computer secure. However, often times security software requires that people use common sense. If a computer file does not contain an exe extension, meaning that it is a runnable program, it usually cannot perform any malicious acts upon your computer. Unfortunately, as blogged about by pccybertek, a new virus is able to embed itself in a gif file, which is a type of file that normally contains an image. Fortunately, the virus cannot be run unless the extension of the file is changed to exe and the user runs it. This blog states that “you don't have to worry about .gif files being a virus at this time”, however I disagree. I think that most people are uneducated in the field of computer security, and they may just unknowingly change the file extension, especially if something pops up telling them to do so. I feel that this actually does pose a significant security risk, since many anti-virus programs skip files that aren’t able to be infected, a gif being one of them, in the interest of faster scanning times. This would allow the file to reside on your computer undetected until someone finally changes the extension and the program is allowed to run. So what should be done? I agree with pccybertek when he states that “You should never have to change the extension”. If you are asked to change the extension, it is probably a virus and should be deleted immediately. Also, if the file is unable to be opened through normal means or if an error comes up when opening the file, then chances are the file extension is wrong and it should be deleted immediately.