This week I had a scary thing happen to me. My computer avoided a worm--by the skin of my chinny, chin, chin, so to speak. I was in my email program when my computer was suddenly taken over by this screen that started listing 5, 6, then 7, then 8+ programs affected by a worm. Down at the bottom appeared a question from my computer asking me if I wanted to give the program access to my computer and a warning that it could harm my computer.
I paused and my heart was seized with fear. This all happened in a matter of seconds.
Then I had the thought that I needed to check my virus program. Just as I began to minimize the screen and go to that icon, my antivirus program showed an icon in the corner that said it had just blocked a worm. I immediately closed the web browser that had been opened and began a full system scan to get rid of any remains.
The whole scene reminded me of the movie inception. There's a scene in the movie where Leonardo di Caprio's character explains to the soon to be new dream designer that you can't incorporate real elements because then the dreamer has a greater likelihood of realizing that the dream is a dream and is not reality. The creator wants the dreamer to believe that the dream is reality!
This worm wanted me to believe that it was in fact protecting me from a worm!
I wanted to share this story in case you ever encounter such a threat on your computer. Computers simply aren't as safe as we want to believe they are.
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