According to the company's country manager, Farokh Karani Lam, the resource centre will provide information on Y2K virus threats, Y2K timeframe technical support and other critical anti-virus services. It will also host descriptions of new Y2K viruses as and when these are discovered with their threat levels classified according to the Avert risk-assessment criteria.

The company is seeking Y2K virus samples for the time period of December 15, 1999 through January 15, 2000 from customers, who can send any suspicious samples and Y2K-related stuff to Averty2k@nai.com.

The company says that it will update information weekly, daily, or hourly and will provide round-the-clock, follow-the-sun monitoring of new viruses to help McAfee Total Virus Defense customers stay out of threats to their networks.

As we approach the new millennium, very little attention has been placed on the possibility of new virus and malicious code attacks, the company official feels. Virus writers may be scheming to wreak havoc during Y2K by creating viruses that will strike in the new millennium. Besides compliance issues related to the Y2K date change, there are a host of virus-related issues customers should be aware of for a safe Y2K lock-down period.

Network Associates has begun efforts to make customers extensively aware about the threats of virus attacks. It has put up a few must-do things such as:

Have a C: The user has to make sure that the machine's boot order has C: and not purely diskettes. The Setup parameters has to be changed to enable the machine to boot from the C: drive, which will protect against accidental boot virus infections.

Write-protect Normal.Dot: The message is simple and clear; Macro viruses, the most prevalent today, account for 80-90 per cent of the problems. The majority of Word macro viruses attack by infecting the Normal.Dot files with Microsoft applications being the worst affected.

Turn on macro virus protection in Office: Programmes in the Microsoft Office suite have an option under tools/general call Macro Virus Protection. By enabling it, each product will warn the user if there are any macros in an incoming document or spreadsheet. If you're not expecting any macros, don't let them run.

Patience: While you are downloading those free downloads such anti-virus software, be patient as you may need them. When you have a chance to download the executable files, do so and put it in a safe place. Wait for a week. If no one complains about the package, and the more you hear about it, the more it seems to fit your needs, try it.

Don't ever double-click attachments!: Download and save those attachments. Scan them, or have your on-access scanner scan them during the download process. Then invoke the appropriate software to look at those files. Once on disk, this process works quite fast. But if you're always reading this stuff through the e-mail server, it's slow and you'll just have to do it again, later.

Importantly, it has been found that Internet Relay Chat sessions are one of the most popular ways to spread viruses. The current versions organise its files to lessen the ability of someone to transmit a virus to you. The best thing to do, however, is never accept a file named Script.ini.

Change your Autoexec.Bat: Rename your C: Autoexec.Bat to C: Auto.Bat. If any virus or Trojan adds to or replaces your Autoexec.Bat file, it will be easy to notice. And if it adds to the end of the file, the code will not execute.

Distribute only RTF: Send only Rich Text Format (RTF) files and not DOCs. Surely when you are sending an infected file to someone, you are admitting to the world that your security measures are inadequate and can infect others. RTF files do not support macros and so save the document you've been working on as a Rich Text Format file.

Scan files used at home: A common way of introducing a virus into a corporation is through work brought in from home. Scan before you load these files and be careful in particular with children who share programmes from friends or the internet.

Backups are useful: Although backups do not prevent viruses, in the event of a virus attack, backups can be of immeasurable value.

Keep your software updated: Users are well versed with updating anti-virus software but understand that even Microsoft Office has updates, each of which improves the level of security. Office 97 introduced the macro virus protection referenced above. Office 97 itself has updates, SR1 and SR2, which disable certain methods of macro virus spread.