After almost 20 years of using computers, I have come to appreciate the importance of computer security. That irritating obligation you may feel to run an anti-virus check on your system once a day just to feel more secure, the wish to eliminate those nagging spam emails permanently from your Inbox, and more recently, those unsolicited requests to update your online banking information, also known as phishing.
If you are like most people and want to avoid the loss of important information on your computer or laptop, I suggest you implement the following suggestions asap:
- Respect Your Personal Privacy: Most people register for websites left, right,t and centre. This is encouraged by people who invite all their friends to join the latest social networking websites. And with the proliferation of niche social networking websites, this trend is set to continue. However, personal privacy is being ruined by simple behaviour like forwarding jokes or chain letters. Start to protect your email address and other personal information. If you’re just exploring a new website, register a free email address, and use that one to avoid receiving spam at some later date. When you send out emails to more than one person, consider using BCC.
- Install a Personal Firewall – One of the things I did for the first 8 years of my professional career was to install and maintain network firewalls. Personal firewalls are smaller versions of this same concept that protect your personal computer or laptop. The purpose of the firewall is to prevent unsolicited attempts to hack your information. Cellphones do not have such a facility just yet, but will require one in the near future, especially smartphones. As broadband explodes in South Africa, more and more people simply leave their computers permanently connected to the Internet. The risk of an attack on your computer is compounded, so remember to switch it off. Even if your information is NOT valuable, your computer can potentially be used as a gateway to cause problems for other people. And that will eventually come back to you, causing more unnecessary headaches. There are many pieces of remote scanning software and remote management software which allows you to take over a desktop seamlessly. I recommend ZoneAlarm or Sygate.
- Anti-Virus: This is actually the most basic component of computer security because computer viruses have been around since the earliest days of the Internet. Once again, Microsoft products are the main culprits, period. So protect yourself using one of the following recommended free anti-virus programs: PC Tools, ClamWin or AVG. It is important that your anti-virus also checks your emails before sending and before receiving, because today, this is the #1 method by which they spread.
- Anti-Spyware: Spyware is similar to computer viruses but different. The proliferation of spyware can be directly correlated to the rise of interactive websites, and to some extent, e-commerce websites. This website primarily uses files like cookies to track user behaviour across the Web. Besides being an invasion of personal privacy, sometimes small applications are installed, with your permission, to give you certain functionality. I strongly advocate that you turn your web browser settings to the highest privacy settings, and it will go some way to reducing this problem. On the other hand, you must run a weekly scan for spyware using one of the following software applications: Ad-Aware, Windows Defender,
- Operating Systems updates: This is probably the most irritating part of maintaining good computer security. If you are running Windows XP or Windows Vista, you are downloading updates constantly. This not only uses bandwidth but, over time, adds so many layers on top of your existing installation that it reduces the time to boot your computer. Even if you are running Mac OS X or Ubuntu Linux, my favourite alternatives to Microsoft Windows, they both require weekly or at least monthly updates from the Internet. These updates fix security loopholes often discovered by white hat hackers or by ordinary users. Remember that software applications often update themselves on a regular basis as well, and programs like Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Office can be your Achilles heel, so consider moving to Open Office.