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McAfee Virus Scan Tutorial

Overview - What is a virus?

What is a virus?

Computer viruses are called viruses because they share some of the traits of biological viruses. A computer virus passes from computer to computer like a biological virus passes from person to person.

A computer virus must piggyback on top of some other program or document in order to get executed. Once it is running, it is then able to infect other programs or documents. Obviously, the analogy between computer and biological viruses stretches things a bit, but there are enough similarities that the name sticks.

What is a worm?

A worm is a computer program that has the ability to copy itself from machine to machine. Worms normally move around and infect other machines through computer networks . Using a network, a worm can expand from a single copy incredibly quickly. For example, the Code Red worm replicated itself over 250,000 times in approximately nine hours on July 19, 2001.

A worm usually exploits some sort of security hole in a piece of software or the operating system. For example, the Slammer worm (which caused mayhem in January 2003) exploited a hole in Microsoft's SQL server.

Types of Infection

When you listen to the news, you hear about many different forms of electronic infection. The most common are:

Viruses - A virus is a small piece of software that piggybacks on real programs. For example, a virus might attach itself to a program such as a spreadsheet program. Each time the spreadsheet program runs, the virus runs, too, and it has the chance to reproduce (by attaching to other programs) or wreak havoc.
E-mail viruses - An e-mail virus moves around in e-mail messages , and usually replicates itself by automatically mailing itself to dozens of people in the victim's e-mail address book.
Worms - A worm is a small piece of software that uses computer networks and security holes to replicate itself. A copy of the worm scans the network for another machine that has a specific security hole. It copies itself to the new machine using the security hole, and then starts replicating from there, as well.
Trojan horses - A Trojan horse is simply a computer program. The program claims to do one thing (it may claim to be a game) but instead does damage when you run it (it may erase your hard disk ). Trojan horses have no way to replicate automatically.

Installing McAfee Virus Scan 7.x

Click here to go to http://mcafee.usu.edu to download the McAfee Virus Scan software.

Step 1: Open a browser window and go to http://mcafee.usu.edu.

Under the Downloads section, click on the "VirusScan for Windows/Dos/OS2" link.
Click on the "Download the self-extracting exe file (VSE710EN.exe)" link.
Save the file to your computer. (Saving to your desktop is recommended)

Step 2: Browse to the location where you downloaded the VSE710EN.exe file, and double-click on it. (This should start the installation wizard)

Step 3: The installatioin wizard will guide you through the installation process. When it completes, Virus Scan 7.x will be installed on your computer.

Make sure you configure McAfee to update daily or right click on the McAfee icon and select "Update Now" to get the latest updates.

Configuring for daily updates

VirusScan version 7 changed the way they perform updates. In version 4.5.1 and earlier the updates were contained in large .zip files known as "DAT" or "virus definition" files. Version 7.0 now uses .UPD files to perform the updates. These files are much smaller, hence they download and update faster.

You may configure your computer to automatically update the .UPD files for McAfee VirusScan by completing the steps outlined below. The UPD files for McAfee's VirusScan are updated daily on the mcafee.usu.edu server.

These instructions assume you have previously installed McAfee VirusScan v7.0 or later and currently have it running on your computer. If VirusScan is not currently running, you will need to install and have it running before proceeding.

If you have not yet downloaded and installed McAfee Virus Scan then click here to get this software.

Step 1: Open the VirusScan Console by clicking with the right mouse button on the VirusScan icon on the far right side of the taskbar and selecting VirusScan Console...

You may also open the VirusScan Console by clicking on :

"Start" > "All Programs" > "Network Associates" > "VirusScan Console"

Step 2: Click on "Tools" on the menu bar and select "Edit AutoUpdate Repository List..."

Step 3: This will take you into the following window and allow you to modify the default settings.

Step 4: Click on the "Add" button and configure the autoupdate as shown in the picture below.

Reconfiguring VirusScan to update from a local "Repository" will decrease the time to perform the update.

Once you have configured the Repository as shown above click "OK".

Step 5: Next you will need to schedule how often you want to update VirusScan with the latest .UPD files.

To configure the schedule double click on the "AutoUpdate" in the VirusScan Console.

Step 6: Click on the "Schedule" button that appears then click on the "Schedule" tab. We recommend that you schedule updates at least weekly. Updates are release from McAfee daily.

Click "OK" and your done!

Your computer has now been configured to check for virus definition updates on a daily basis.

Detecting and Removing a Virus

If you have not yet downloaded and installed McAfee Virus Scan then click here to get this software.

Step 1: Right click on the McAfee icon in the bottom left corner of your screen (if you are using Windows XP, you may need to click the show hidden icons button to see the McAfee icon).

From this menu, select On-Demand Scan...

Step 2: In the window that comes up, click the "scan now " button.

Step 3: Scanning. Let this scan run until it is completed.

Your computer has now been scanned for viruses. Make sure you configure McAfee to update daily or right click on the McAfee icon and select "Update Now" to get the latest updates.

How to install virus updates manually

If you have not yet downloaded and installed McAfee Virus Scan then click here to get this software.

Step 1: Open a browser window and go to http://download.mcafee.com. (You may also visit http://mcafee.usu.edu for the latest virus updates as well.)

Under the Retail Products section, click on the "Anti-Virus (DAT) Files" link.

Step 2: Click on the "SuperDAT for VirusScan 6.x and 7.x" link.

Step 3: Scroll down and click on the "Download" button to download the latest SuperDAT file. Let this scan run until it is completed.

Let this scan run until it is completed.

Step 4: Click on "Save" to save the file to your computer. (Saving to your desktop is recommended)

Step 5: Browse to the location where you downloaded the SuperDAT file (sdatxxx.exe), and double-click on it to run the update.

Step 6: Click "Next" to proceed with the installation. Click "Finish" when done.

Your computer has now been updated with the latest virus definitions (DAT) file.