(KFVS) – You’ve heard of viruses that can steal your identity and your credit card information, but now one type of malicious software threatens to destroy your reputation by dumping child pornography images on your computer.
Computer experts say it can infect your computer in a number of ways through illegal web sites, file sharing programs and advertisements.
But as it turns out, you can still protect your good name if you suddenly find child porn images flooding your computer.
“The virus doesn’t have a name per se,” said Andrew Bard at Computer 21.
He has not seen the virus firsthand. But he warns, it could already be on your computer.
“It’s really a package these guys put together and they’re trying to infect other computers so they can store this child pornography on other machines and not on their own machines so they don’t get caught.”
Detective Trevor Pulley with the Cyber Crimes Task Force works on cracking a child porn cases.
“A lot of our suspects say I didn’t do it. Someone else did it. This is a defense they’ve tried to use for several years. We have to go through and disprove it’s not the virus it was actually that individual going in and downloading the images,” Pulley said.
He adds that should be reassuring to anyone who finds themselves infected by the actual virus. In fact, he says the chances are slim to none.
“We don’t look at the files on the system, we look at the totality of the evidence. How the file was downloaded on the system, is the file saved on the system, is the file being manipulated, renamed, are there multiple files? A lot of suspects we deal with rename the files.”
Det. Pulley says he’s yet to take on a case where the virus helped clear someone’s name, but he agrees with Andrew Bard you can protect yourself before you get infected.
“The individuals trading this, possessing these things, want to have access to these types of files. The other system’s not turned on, don’t have access to those images anymore.”
“Getting virus software is a good start,” Bard said.
He also suggests don’t click on advertisements, or visit illegal web sites. He says shut down your computer if you get a message you’ve been infected.
As far as signs your computer is infected – he says if it suddenly becomes very slow, or it boots up without warning, then you probably want to get it checked out by a professional.

If you use the Internet, like I do searching for information going from one site to another your computer is susceptible to a wide variety of potentially dangerous and costly threats. I found this to true when I visited this one site and my computer started to acting weird and suddenly began to get very slow and I couldn’t close any windows even when I tried to use “ctrl-alt-del” keys I knew then I was in trouble. In addition to taking up valuable memory space and starving your other applications of power, computer viruses can carry out such malicious damage as erasing your files and have the ability to spread to your network and contact list. Spyware and other malware can also inflict harm, such as stealing your credit card numbers and other confidential information.

For instance, millions of computers around the world have been taken over by hackers and placed into groups of hacked computers called BotNets. BotNets can carry out internet attacks, send out spam, etc. Most of the people who own computers in these Bot Nets don’t even know it … You might even be in one them right now!

Go get your computer checked out Free for peace of mind you’ll be glad you did.

by Calvin Bell

The internet is the most interesting and intriguing phenomenon of the half century, you can do so much with it socializing with people from around the world to researching and finding answers on any topic to downloading your favorite movies or music.

Yes downloading just about anything is accessible on the internet. Some of the providers of these downloads attach tracking programs (something like a automobile Lojac) when you visit their sites, for advertising purposes such as adware which can be annoying with the pop ups (advertisements) that they provide and when you are trying to do something constructive on your computer.

You may think that these sites should be safe, but never be naïve your PC, Laptop has your personal information on and should be protected. Spyware Malware and Viruses are a real threat. I’ll be writing more about these threats and telling which sites offer help to keep your computer free from these nuisances and speed up your machine. In the meantime do something to protect your privacy.