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What can you do to prevent attacks on your computer system?

We all know about virus software. Its advertised and talked about everywhere. Most users have now heard about spy-ware and ad-ware that now are attacking our systems. We can find software ranging in price from free to thousands of dollars that will remove these threats and pests, but just how much to we need to spend to adequately protect our system? This depends on how you use your system and how savvy you are as a computer user.

The first line of defense is you, the user. You must be aware of e-mails with attachments. If you receive an e-mail that has an attached file, ask yourself some questions.

1. Did I know I was going to receive this file?

2.  Do I want this file?

3.  Does the e-mail describe what the file is?

4.  Is this the way the sender of the e-mail describes things?

If you are not sure of any of these things your best course of action is to delete the e-mail and its attachment. You can call, instant message or e-mail the sender and ask what they sent you to make sure if you like but don’t open the attachment unless you are sure you want it.

By checking first you will help to prevent the spread of worms. Remember when you send an e-mail to someone make sure they also understand what you are sending them.

Second on the list is virus software. 

Many systems now come with trial copies of virus software that work for a few months and then you need to pay for regular updates. This is very important. Virus scans are only as good as the most recent update. There are millions of users that think as long as the virus software is scanning the system they are protected. This is just wrong. If the last update was a year ago the scan will not find any of the newest viruses. you must have updates. I like to use AVG from Grisoft. Individual users can download a free version, install it and receive regular updates at no cost. There is also a paid version that provides for faster update downloads for about $35 for 2 years. Business can purchase licenses for each of their systems for somewhere between $25 and $35 dollars per machine including 2 years of updates. I have not found any virus software that works better than AVG.

Ad-ware comes next –

• Do you get any pop-ups?
• Does your system seem to slowdown to a crawl when you are on line?
• Does your homepage change by itself?
• Are additional search engines appearing on your browser? 

It’s a very good chance you have spy-ware programs running on your computer. If you are an expert user you may be able to search through your system and remove the unwanted programs but they will return and you will most likely disable some feature that you didn’t mean to. The best way to remove these programs is with a program. My preference is Ad-Aware from Lavasoft.  Again there is a free version and a paid version.  The free version will remove the problems but does nothing to prevent known threats from attacking again. You will need to continually request updates and scan your system manually. The paid version, $25 to $40 per system, will immunize your system against the most common threats and provides a smoother update process.  There is also some shareware called spy-bot search & destroy that works well but it, as most shareware, is a use at you own risk solution.

There is one additional risk that I have not discussed, direct attacks.  This is from someone either creating a program or actually sitting down and hacking into your computer. This is very common with any broadband or any “always on” connection. To prevent this you need a firewall. A firewall is software or hardware that essentially allows for one-way traffic to the internet. I prefer the hardware method for 2 reasons. First you can protect multiple computers with a single router. Second you do not have an additional program running on your system that is using resources and slowing it down. There are some free versions of firewalls out there but I find even the paid versions require some knowledge of networking to adequately configure them to protect your system. Additionally many users end up turning them off to allow a program to run and later forget that it needs to be turned back on.

All of these are important to protect your system from malicious attacks. You need to find the right level for your computers and be vigilant in checking updates and e-mail attachments.

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Last modified: December 12, 2010        
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