When I was a kid, my mom used to put a baking soda paste on bee stings and bug bites. I'm not sure it really helped that much, but psychologically it made me feel alot better. McAfee's AVERT labs has released a new tool, Stinger, that takes the sting out of many popular viruses and it's definitely much more than a 'feel good' fix. At a time when virus writers specifically target antivirus software, disabling its protective shields and leaving systems difficult to disinfect, Stinger is a must have in your arsenal. Best of all, Stinger is free - consider it a philanthropic remedy to cure today's most common viruses.

The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool checks Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 computers for and helps remove infections by specific, prevalent malicious software-including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom. When the detection and removal process is complete, the tool displays a report describing the outcome, including which, if any, malicious software was detected and removed. The tool creates a log file named mrt.log in the %WINDIR%\debug folder.

What is a boot sector? All disks and hard drives are divided into small sectors. The first sector is called the boot sector and contains the Master Boot Record (MBR). The MBR contains the information concerning the location of partitions on the drive and reading of the bootable operating system partition. During the bootup sequence on a DOS-based PC, the BIOS searches for certain system files, IO.SYS and MS-DOS.SYS. When those files have been located, the BIOS then searches for the first sector on that disk or drive and loads the needed Master Boot Record information into memory. The BIOS passes control to a program in the MBR which in turn loads IO.SYS. This latter file is responsible for loading the remainder of the operating system.

What is EICAR? Antivirus software detects viruses based on signature definitions, i.e. known strings of code with a specific algorithm employed to create the individual definitions. EICAR is a non-viral string of code that most antivirus software have included in their signature definition files. EICAR allows users to check whether their antivirus software is running. For example, if you try to open EICAR.COM, if your realtime protection feature is enabled the antivirus software should generate an alert. You can also manually scan EICAR to test your manual (on-demand) scanner.

The #1 virus transmission method in recent years has been via exchanging Microsoft Office documents. This happens because MS Office documents can have "macros" (Visual Basic programs) attached, and these programs can be malicious. Many of the recent spate of e-mail worms have been transmitted as MS Office documents.

The appearance of the Simple User Interface is very flexible. It supports so-called skins, allowing users to change the appearance of the application interface. The main package contains three skins, with additional skins available from our web pages.

ClamWin is a Free Antivirus program for Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003 and Vista. ClamWin Free Antivirus comes with an easy installer and open source code. You may download and use it absolutely free of charge.

Scripts are small programs that are written in a variety of simple computer languages. They can perform useful functions but they can also be used for less useful and sometimes damaging purposes, the prime examples being computer viruses and trojan-horse programs.

Trend MicroTM HouseCall is an application for checking whether your computer has been infected by viruses, spyware, or other malware. HouseCall performs additional security checks to identify and fix vulnerabilities to prevent reinfection.

Stinger is a stand-alone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses. It is not a substitute for full anti-virus protection, but rather a tool to assist administrators and users when dealing with an infected system. Stinger utilizes next generation scan engine technology, including process scanning, digitally signed DAT files, and scan performance optimizations.