All Ball State University computer users should be aware of an exploit when visiting Facebook.  If you computer has been updated with the latest patches from Microsoft issued since September 2006, you won't experience a problem.  If you haven't updated your Windows computer in more than a year, you'll be subject to a barrage of unwanted adware. 

This attack uses exploit MS06-014 to initiate the commands to run an adware installer.  Once your computer is infected, your Internet Explorer home page displays additional windows serving various ads.

To protect yourself from this and other know viruses make certain your Windows operating system is up-to-date.

1. Make sure you have a connection to the Internet
2. Open up Internet Explorer
3. Under Tools, select Windows Update
   Note: You may receive a security warning asking if you want to trust the script that will be running on your machine. Since Microsoft is running the script it is ok to say Yes
4. Click Scan for updates
5. To the left of the page, you can see how many updates are available. The Critical Updates and Service Packs section are already selected if there are any updates for you to have. You can go through some of the other sections and read more about them and see if those updates are needed for your machine.
6. When ready to install, click Review and install updates
7. New page appears, click Install Now button

After download and installation are finished you may need to restart, follow the on-screen commands.

It is also important to make sure your antivirus software is installed and up-to-date.  Visit the Ball State University Antivirus web site at www.bsu.edu/antivirus/ for more information.

For additional information about viruses, scams, hoaxes and spam visit the Security and Policy web site.

This article was originally a blog post on CNET News.com.