Introduction
Internet becomes popular and popular these days but do you aware your computers are very insecure when you are connect your computer to the Internet?
In this article, we will give you 7 easy steps on how to protect your PC from online threat these days.
Step 1: Get the latest free anti-virus, personal firewall and anti-spam software and manually update the programs!
Computers users usually ignore this simple but yet important step. "Are they automatically updated to newest version?" That was a customer asked me back in 2004. Yes those commercial anti-virus or personal firewall programs will indeed automatically update within their license periods (usually one year), one typical example is Symantec Norton Norton Anti-Virus software. But, when the license is approaching to its end, (usually you have automatically update up to 9 months) the software suddenly could not update itself. Why? Perhaps, it is a marketing strategy to remind the software users that the license is going to expire! Therefore, it is very important for you to do manual anti-virus, anti-spam or personal firewall update (may be once a week) to prevent your PC from viruses or Trojan horses attack.
Step 2: Get the latest patch of your windows.
Get your latest patch of windows system! And not wait for tomorrow or next year!
Computer users always ignore this is vital step to stop their computers are being hacked or being tools to spread computer viruses around. They usually think install an anti virus or personal firewall program is enough. Yes, it is true that anti-virus or personal firewall programs do have some protection on computers but the main problems are Windows are always "buggy". Their security updates or patches often take 6 months to 1 year to launch which already reported about 6 months ago in anti-virus giants such as Symantec or McAfee websites!
Therefore, you should get the latest fixes of your Windows! How? One easy way is to use the "automatic update function". It is found in control panel menu. Go to "Start -> control panel -> automatic update" on your Windows XP and make sure your automatic box is checked and set up check for updated daily and you are set!
Step 3: Stay alert
Why you should stay alert? When come to computer security you may be the first person to notice in your office that a computer virus outbreak is going to begin.
Let's look at two examples, those are Iloveyou email virus in year 2000 and Code-red in year 2004. If you remembered that some Fortune 500 giants actually got their email system shutdown because of "iloveu"! It caused tremendous amount of business revenue loss. Hence next time, if you see something wired happening on your computer, immediate seek advice from your computer technicians since that may be a virus outbreak is going to begin and your computer technician do not yet know about it.
Step 4: Never ever join computer software, MP3 sites that allow unlimited download for life time or whatsoever.
Recently, I found some websites that claimed to have life time membership on downloading unlimited software or movies and mp3. At a glance it was a crappy website and I don't bother to look at it. Because I thought it was some kind of web site which providing software crack codes. As I read further I found they are using Click Bank as their provider! Well, as some of you already know Click Bank is a pretty well known company in internet marketing such as affiliate programs so I joined because I have unlimited download of software that I want to use. Thus I pull my credit card out and fill all the required information and off I go. I accessed the website.
After I logged in, they gave me a program to download so I did but what I was not able to find what I was looking for. Therefore I opened up the program that I'd just downloaded and tried to use the built-in search function. As I was waiting the search result, I saw a bunch of cracks files or crack codes related to that software on different computers. What does that mean? It means it is a file sharing software. It does not really provide the software, you may say it is a member site that allow access to others members computer for file sharing, but they did not provide the piece of software that I was looking for nor they stated that they did not actually provide the software but you could find it on their members' computers! Therefore I believed it was a scam. How do they force their members to share files? And how do they guarantee those files shared by their members are 100% owned them or 100% royalty free? It is same sort of old story back to days of the favorite MP3 sharing website called Napster.
Thus don't join this kind of website, personally I think they are rubbish and completely waste of money.
Step 5:Don't use BT or (Bit Torrent)(for those of you don't know what it is, don't worry. Just skip to step 6. For those who know please read on.
BT generally is a good idea on saving time to download a big file when internet connections are slow. However, some people out there tries to use BT (Bit Torrent) for illegal purposes such as copyright infringed mp3, computer software, movies and so on.
Often these pieces of mp3, movies or computer software are provided in zip, rar format to save some space and speed. But you don't know what pieces of software are bundled in these zips or rars files. It may be computer viruses, Trojan horses or a key logger which basically can log everything you typed on your keyboard and then send a report to their owners or people who let your download their software or media. Which means your password, username and other personal information may be revealed by another person that you do not know. Therefore, next time when you see a BT site, stay away from it. (Unless it is some well established site like Open Office (software like MS office or World of War Craft, online massive multi-players role playing games)
Step 6: Never download software from crack, warez sort of sites.
Don't ever never try to find crack of some popular software like WinZip, WinRAR, Dreamweaver, Norton Anti-virus and so on and so forth. Why? Because, again you never know the file that you are downloading contains virus or trojan horse or keylogger or not. For computer safety reasons, do not use BT!
Sometimes, we're heard by someone who's seeking "Free" version of popular software like those ones listed above said, "My computer was infected by virus and it becomes not cleanable!" That is you may need to re-install your Windows. What a pain that is!
So stop looking these "Free" resources and instead try to look for open source alternatives like FileZilla (a ftp program like cuteFTP or WsFTP), Open Office as opposed to Microsoft Office, kompozer as opposed to Dreamweaver or front page.
Step 7: Always back up important files or data to external source
What if your computer is infected by a virus or being hacked and become non-usable?
The quickest way often is to re-format your computer hard drive and reinstall Windows XP when it becomes non-usable or simply non-controllable. But before you are a hit by such a situation, make sure you always have up to date important documents or files back up. You can either back them up on your company's file server, your USB flash drive, diskette or CD/DVD ROMs
With today USB flash drive, CD/DVD ROMS are being so cheap you don't have any reasons on why you're not doing it!
In conclusion,
Computer security is not as hard as you might think, you just basically have to follow the basic instruction in this article and you're done!
Proson Cheng, a founder of leading affordable web hosting company at http://www.18AffordableWebHosting.com
He has 3+ years experience in outsourcing computer technical support, system administration and computer network support on multi-national companies such as Cosmopolitan Hong Kong, Leigh & Orange Architect firm, TSL container line and so on. If you find the information useful please spread it around.
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