Introduction
Internet becomes popular and popular these days but do you aware your computers are very insecure when you are surfing internet and checking your email?
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!
These are most easy step to protect from computer virus or trojan horses attack but often users forget to get the latest update of their anti-virus or personal firewall on their computers!
"Are they automatically updated to newest version?" That was a customer asked me back in 2004. Well yes, those commercial anti-virus or personal firewall programs will automatically update within their license periods usually one year. One typical example is Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 200x where x is a number from 0-9.
It does automatically update within the first, perhaps, 9 months after your initial purchase but when it's approaching to your 1 year term, the software suddenly couldn't update itself. (May be, it is a marketing strategy to remind its users, to renew the license because it is going to expire!) And users often forget to manual update so what will happen after all? Left their computers vulnerable to viruses or trojan horses attack!
Thus, please manually update in a regular basis (once a week) by manually press the update button on your anti-virus program. (Read more on popular anti-virus software)
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 installing an anti virus or personal firewall software is enough. Well, yes anti-virus or personal firewall programs do have some protection on computers but the main problems are Windows are always "buggy" and security updates or patches often take 6 months to 1 year to launch which already reported may be 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 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 done!
Step 3: Stay alert
Why you should stay alert? When come to Internet security you may be the first person to notice in your office that in a computer virus outbreak is going to begin. Typical examples are iloveyou email virus in year 2000 and codeRed in year 2004. Your computer technician may be the last one to notice. Therefore you should work with computer technician and seek advice when you saw something wired on your computer is happening.
Step 4: Never ever join computer software, MP3 sites that allow unlimited download for life time or whatsoever.
Recently, I found some websites that claim 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's 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 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 download the program but what I am after isn't there. Therefore I opened up the program that I'd just downloaded and tried to search by typing in software name that I am after in the search box. After that, 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 doesn't really provide the software, you may say it is a member site that allow access to others members computer for file sharing. To me it is a scam. Because they don't provide information on they don't actually provide the software but you can find it on their members' computers! But how they can force their members not to share programs that are not owned by their members? It is same sort of controversy 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 (for those of you don't know what it is, don't worry about it. Just skip to step 6. For those who know please read on.
BT generally is a good idea because it saves time to download a big file when internet connections are slow. However, some people out there tried to use for illegal purposes such as copyright infringed mp3, computer software, movies sharing 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 again, 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 keyword 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 don't 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 what is the file downloaded contains virus or trojan horse or keylogger.
Well, these often heard by someone who's seeking "Free" version of popular software like those ones listed above. "My computer was infected by virus and it becomes uncleanable!"
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. (read more on how to find
Most open source software are free and they do have bug fixes, so for your own computer's security sake, use open source software if you are seeking cheap alternatives.
Step 7: Always back up important files
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!
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