Information you should know about your computer

If all you read is one thing on this page, then read this.

When you use email and go to Internet web sites you begin to open your computer up to potential threats from unknown people.  These people are looking for ways to use your computer without your consent or knowledge.  Their purposes are varied, but the days of viruses being 'just' a troubling problem for you are long gone. Malware is anything unwanted on your PC that is put there for malicious purposes.  Most of the malware you get has the objective of making someone some money.

So you need to do what you can to protect yourself and your PC.  The easiest way for the people to access your information and your PC is to use social engineering.  That is, getting you to do something that is not in your best interest. This can be in the guise of an email which wants you to open a file or click on a link.  That file or link may not look suspicious, but it will contain some software that opens the door for them to use your computer.

Or you may be visiting a web site that has malware on it and the web sitemaster won't know that his or her site is infected.  Just by visiting the site will a piece of malicious software be downloaded to your PC.

There's not much you can do about these things other than to be aware of the problem and to not click on anything you're not sure of.  Antivirus (AV) software won't prevent you from clicking on something that shouldn't be clicked.  It might prevent the malware from downloading.  But virus writers are always at least 2 steps ahead of the antivirus writers.  Your AV software just can't keep up.

What else can you do?

Knowing your AV software isn't good enough doesn't mean you shouldn't have it.  If you're part of a company, then they should have implemented some companywide AV solution. 

• If you're looking at protecting your home office PC then you'll need AV protection of some sort.  There are free solutions and also solutions you can can pay for.  Internet security suites that have a variety of protection solutions available are an easy way to protect your computer.  Free antivirus solutions can be had from companies like Microsoft, AVG and others.
• You also need to have firewall protection.  Windows XP with SP2 and later Microsoft operating systems come with a software firewall.  Make sure it's enabled.  Your home router has a hardware firewall.  If your home computer is not attached to a router but is connected via a modem only, you are opening yourself up to problems.  You will need to get a router.
• Then make sure your operating system and programs are updated.  Microsoft, Adobe, and Java are constantly putting out security updates to their products (as does Apple). These three companies are the major targets of attack. They all have automatic update notifications.  WHEN YOU SEE A NOTICE THAT MICROSOFT, ADOBE, OR JAVA HAS AN UPDATE, THEN CLICK ON THE NOTICE AND UPDATE IT.  One of the things that Gollub Consulting constantly sees are PCs where the owner ignores these update notices.

That is the basics of PC security.  Your computer can be used for many purposes.  By taking these basic PC security measures, you can ensure the safe use of your system to exchange word processing, spreadsheet, and a host of other types of documents over the internet.