As a Scribendi contractor, you are responsible for making sure your computer equipment is free of viruses, spyware, and any other electronic threats (time bombs, trojan horses, worms, traps, disabling codes, or any other mechanisms intentionally designed to restrict use or access or to disable, erase, destroy, damage, alter, or render meaningless, useless, or ineffective, or otherwise harm the materials or any hardware, data, programs, or applications). We do not want you transmitting these hazards to our server or to our clients. We also don't want you receiving an electronic hazard from our clients. 

That means you need to have anti‐virus software. The software also needs to be updated regularly—weekly at a minimum, but daily is preferred. Examples of anti-virus and anti-malware programs include Avast, Avira, BitDefender, Kaspersky, McAfee, and Norton. We recommend that you configure the software to update itself automatically as often as possible and that you run a full system scan at least weekly; we also recommend that you configure it to scan incoming emails, if that's an option. In addition, please ensure that you are running Windows Update and that you are updating other applications regularly. 

You should also have anti‐spyware software installed, and it too should be updated regularly. It should be configured to protect your system in real time (i.e., stop spyware from getting onto your system in the first place) and it should scan your whole computer a minimum of once a week. Microsoft has recently released free anti‐spyware software; AdAware is another example of a free program. 

So as not to affect system performance, we suggest you run these scans at different times, when you are unlikely to be working on the computer (e.g., during dinner).

These programs should be on ALL the computers you use in association with performing work for Scribendi—laptops, desktops, PDAs, and any networked machines. 

If your computer's security has been compromised at any time or for any reason, notify Scribendi immediately, especially if you have work in progress. 

Last Updated: 09/09/2022