DIY-Secure.com

Written by diy-guy on July 29th, 2010

Simple Tips To Keep Your Computer Secure

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In this day and age the internet is key to people’s lives. People do many things online such as chat, do their shopping, or their banking. But the more business that is done online, the more time we spendthe more vulnerable people are to potential security threats from hackers. It could be anything fron a hacker wanting to use your computer as a ‘zombie’; a platform to use for attacks on other personal computers or they may want to access your private data, a practice which is called ‘phishing’. All of us who use a PC online should know of the dangers, and here we will list some basic techniques to help you protect yourself.

1) Back up your important information and store it away from the computer. Modern computers are equipped with DVD-R drives and this simplifies the task of storing your data to a blank disc to be filed. As an alternative, why not use an external hard drive?

2) Update your operating system, browser, and software frequently. Windows 7 now provides an automated update where the latest patches are downloaded to your computer for you to apply on the next reboot. You could also access it from the Control Panel (Start-Control Panel-Windows Update). For older versions of Windows (e.g. XP) you can check online for patches at windowsupdate.microsoft.com. Keep in mind that the older versions of Windows may no longer be supported by Microsoft, so for most effective security protection keep your operating system as up-to-date as you can. In the same way keep your browser updated; most browsers have an option to check for updates from the Help menu.

3) Set up a firewall. A good firewall will block viruses and trojans from getting onto your machine, and anything you are unaware of that is trying to access the internet without your consent will be stopped. Windows Firewall is included with Vista and Windows 7 (and is by default turned on), but you may also want to consider a third- party product such as the popular ZoneAlarm (www.zonealarm.com).

4) Check your browser security settings. If you’re using Internet Explorer go to Tools then Internet Options, then choose the Security tab. By default, the level is set to ‘medium-high’. Set this to ‘high’ to block Active-X and Javascript, which can be used by hackers to plant more trojans on your machine. You can maintain a list of ‘trusted sites’ (click the green tick for this zone) and add the addresses of those sites you do trust and they will not be blocked the same way as untrusted websites. Firefox security settings are accessed by clicking Tools then Options, then selecting the Security tab.

5) Make sure you have antivirus software. Highly important! Most computers come with a version of McAfee or Norton which is valid for 30 days, but to keep receiving updates you have to subscribe to them. If you do not have these or wish to use a free antivirus solution, AVG or Avast both offer free versions; when you install either of these make sure they are set to update automatically so that the latest antivirus patches are downloaded to you regularly.

6) Beware of email attachments. A common way of passing a virus around is via an email attachment, you can scan these using your anti-virus software but in general, if you do not recognise the sender, do not trust the attachment. What’s more, you may get a mail from an address that appears genuine, but is actually a hacker impersonating a genuine company (this is a typical ‘phishing’ method).

7) Don’t run programs from unknown sources. Just as before, your anti-virus software should be able to scan and detect viruses hidden in downloaded files, but use your common sense. Also do not forward anything on of which you are not sure, it may be amusing but if a friend or co-worker gets a virus from it, you could land yourself in trouble.

Disable hidden filename extensions. By default, Windows hides file extensions ‘for known file types’. This should be disabled, you do this by going to Tools, then Folder Options, and selecting the View tab in Explorer. In Vista or later, the menu bar is hidden - to reveal it, press the ALT key once and it will show in Explorer, then proceed as described.

9) If you’re away from the machine, turn it off! Nothing can get to your computer while it’s switched off, so when you’re not using it, shut it down.

10) Make a bootable CD or pen drive so that if your machine ever does get damaged, you can still start it up. Nowadays, machines no longer use floppy drives to boot from a floppy in the event of a computer failing to start from the hard drive, so you would need to use your CD drive or USB pen drive instead. One method of getting into your system is to have a bootable operating system on a CD or DVD, such as Ubuntu. It will run live from the disk, so if you cannot boot the computer in the normal manner, you can still get to the files and if necessary retrieve them. Ubuntu is a free operating system based on Linux, and you can get it at http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download

These are some of the basic steps we should all take so that if things do go wrong, we can recover.

Ronnie Soo is a M3 Master Consultant with Wealth Masters International and a director of 5th Wise Monkey Ltd, we aim to support new businesses from start-up through to maturity.

If you’re going into internet marketing, beware of those who promise you can earn money quickly. Only the correct training will help you to reach the rewards on offer.