New threats are constant. Securing your computer or network requires maintenance to keep pace with the changing attack methods and techniques. In any given week there may be anywhere from five to twenty new malware threats discovered. If you install antivirus software today and do nothing else, your computer will be vulnerable to dozens of new threats within a couple of weeks.
It used to be that updating your antivirus software on a weekly basis was sufficient in most cases. But, as you can see from looking at the timeline discussed earlier, there were three years between officially defining a virus and the first virus affecting Microsoft systems. Five years later, Code Red spread around the world in a day and infected more than 200,000 systems.Two years after that the SQL Slammer worm spread around the world in 30 minutes and crippled the Internet.The frequency and potency of new threats seems to increase exponentially from year to year.The more users who adopt high-speed broadband Internet connections and leave their computers connected 24/7, the greater the potential for a new threat to spread.
For these reasons, I recommend you update your antivirus software daily.You could try to remember or make a note in your date book reminding you to visit the web site of your antivirus software vendor each day to see if a new update has been released and then download and install it, but I’m sure you have better things to do with your time. Antivirus software can be configured to automatically check with the vendor site for any updates on a scheduled basis. Check your antivirus software instructions for how to configure automatic updates for your application. Keep in mind that the computer needs to be turned on and connected to the Internet in order for the software to be able to connect and download the updates, so pick a time of day that you know the computer will be connected.
