Don't look now, but your desk and everything on it (especially your keyboard) is a horrible science project; a thriving freak show of an ecosystem teaming with nasty, microbial sea monkeys. Your cell phone is even worse.

The good news is that, in the past two years, new products have emerged that do for phones, keyboards and mice what antivirus software does for your operating system. The bad news is that you're probably not using any of them.

As an IT professional, your chances of infection -- and spreading the infection within your office -- are alarmingly high.

It's especially alarming this time of year. Flu season is upon us. Flu, or influenza, is caused by RNA viruses from the Orthomyxoviridae family. Between 5 percent and 20 percent of the U.S. population catches the flu every year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm)Flu sufferers usually feel fatigue and soreness in the throat, head and elsewhere and get sick for a week or two. Most survive, but it's not fun. Some aren't so lucky. Influenza kills hundreds of thousands of people worldwide each year unless there is a pandemic, when millions are killed. (http://www.cdc.gov/Ncidod/eid/vol11no04/04-1167.htm) Even vaccination is no guarantee that you'll be protected.

You don't get the flu or other infections randomly. You get sick when germs enter your body -- usually through your mouth or nose, and those germs usually are delivered there by your hands.