Recent waves of computer viruses and attacks have prompted ISU professors to encourage students to seek more security for their PCs.

Jim Davis, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, said attacks are frequent because hackers continually are scanning and analyzing computers at all hours of the day.

Hackers – people who break into computers – do so in order to destroy or steal confidential information, Davis said.

One type of attack is called a denial of service, which “prevents communication to and from the Internet,” he said.

Often, people aren’t aware if a hacker attacks, he said. “People are not likely to know if [their computer] is being attacked,” Davis said. “Often times, they won’t share that information.”

Cookies, or bits of information left on a computer after a user visits a Web site, “are a way for companies to gather information,” said Doug Jacobson, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.

PC users should program their computers to give a warning before it accepts cookies, he said, to protect identity.

The basic step to protecting personal computers is to use a secure password, Davis said. “Use a word or phrase that you can’t find in the dictionary, and make it at least six to eight characters long,” he said.

Instances of computer viruses have also been a problem on campus recently. “Java [a language used by web designers] are little programs that run on your computer,” Jacobson said. “That is also the definition of a virus.”

Davis said people never should open an e-mail attachment with “.vbs” (virtual basic script) in the address because it will infect the computers of everyone in their address book.

In addition to virus scanners, “personal firewall software is a good investment because it checks everything that gets into your computer,” Jacobson said. “If it detects a virus, it gives you a warning message to make sure you want to run that program.”

He said it sometimes takes time before new viruses and attacks are detected. “Virus scanners and firewalls only catch bad things that we know about,” he said. “You should always back up your information because things get deleted.”