Arthur was a pretty savvy Internet user. He knew to not open email attachments from unknown sources or automatically click on links that could download viruses onto his machine. However, one day while browsing the Internet, an icon popped up at the bottom of his screen that said "Your computer is infected! Click here to protect your computer from spyware!" The icon looked like it came from his Windows system, so Arthur clicked on the link. He was confused when nothing happened, but he didn't give it much thought after that.
Within days Arthur noticed serious problems with his computer. Files showed up on his computer that he didn't put there, other files were disappearing, and pop-up windows for adult websites were appearing on his desktop. It turned out that Arthur had been a victim of a hacker exploiting the vulnerability of .wmf (Windows Meta File) images on Windows machines. This vulnerability gave the hacker full control of his computer. It took lots of time and effort for Arthur to get his computer back to normal, and he lost a lot of his data.
"Now I make sure that any warnings that appear on his computer come from the Windows system," says Arthur. "I also run my antivirus software regularly to catch anything that does try to sneak onto my computer, and I make sure to download any patches that Microsoft releases for Windows. If I had only patched my machine earlier, I could have avoided all of this."
To learn how to protect yourself from malware while browsing the Web, see Web Browsing - Malware
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