Viruses infiltrate by stealth, infect, multiply and then hitch a ride on to the next host.
Worms arrive as an infection also, but can slither along independently to the next place of mayhem.
And Trojan horses lull you into believing that they are either a beneficial service or the solution to a problem that will not exist unless you welcome them in.
Being felled by a sucker punch from any one - or combination - of those three cyber instruments of mischief, malevolence and malefaction is the computing equivalent of turning your back for 30 seconds on a briefcase containing your passport, ID, credit cards, bank account numbers and passwords, family savings in cash, entire medical history, and intimate data.
Infection by computer virus is at best an infuriating inconvenience, and at worst a pernicious, parasitical crime of theft, fraud, or even worse. Michael Gazeley, of Network Box, notes pointedly that small businesses that hide behind the defence that only they are inconvenienced in the event of a cyber-attack are deluding themselves: cyber-criminals can hijack pre-invaded computers and networks of computers to act as repositories for child pornography without the owners noticing. It can seem a relatively small affair - after all, nobody gets hurt, nobody dies, just like identity theft - until it happens to you.
It doesn't have to happen to you. All you have to do is:
