In case you haven't noticed we are in the middle of a global epidemic.

No, I'm not talking about hoof and mouth or mad cow disease. What I am taking about is the proliferation of what is known within the inter circles of the computer world as malicious codes. Perhaps you and I know them better as the computer viruses. No matter what we call them the end result is the same: potential disaster in the form of lost or corrupt data and down time.

They may come knocking in the form of the traditional virus, a computer worm or perhaps as a trojan horse. Make no mistake about it, we are all susceptible to these nasty sneak attacks. Sooner or later, if it has not happened already, one will come calling.

These malicious code programs may be content with simply spreading themselves from one computer to another and doing nothing more than laying dormant hidden somewhere on your system. Then again, it may be the digital equivalent of an Ebola virus causing the data on your hard drive to literally eat itself. All the while attaching its siblings to addressees in you mail program to be sent to others. What these invaders do depends completely on the whim of the individual who originated the attack.
Ultimately the bottom line is the same. Your space and system has been invaded and there is nothing you can do about it after it happens. Nothing other than meticulously removing the intruder with the help of a virus eliminator program or perhaps even reformatting your hard drive.

The latest round of attacks has come to us in what seems to be the new weapon of choice for net vandals: the computer worm. It is hidden within an email, posing as a photo of Russian tennis player Anna Kournikova. Computer worms are by no means ordinary viruses, they spread like wildfire via email programs. They reach out to your address book, mail themselves to the addresses they find there and thus infect one system after another, expedientially multiplying along the way. What complicates the matter even more is the fact that these worms can be easily copied and changed by the novice hacker or malicious vandals.

There was a time when in order to create such a thing as a computer worm one was required the staunch ability to write technical code and program. No more. Unbelievably, today anyone can download applications from the Internet to do the work for them. If you have a search engine you can find kits that assemble worms for you and with the click of a few buttons you assign the level of damage they will do.

How does one avoid all this digital pestilence? Thankfully there is a great deal of assistance available. Here are but a few of the best places to arm yourself and 3 fundamental tips to help stay virus free...

1. DO NOT open email attachments you may find in your mail box unless you know exactly who the sender is.

2. Install viruses detection/elimination software on your computer and let it run automatically. Update this software often.

3. Don't allow yourself be tempted by offers of sexy photos of a Russian tennis pro.