5 Critical Steps to Protecting
Your Computer on the
Internet
No doubt you
are all aware that being
connected to the Internet can
be dangerous to your Computer's
health with malicious software
commonly known as MalWare which
covers spyware, trojans and
viruses. The chances are when
you purchased your computer the
salesman never explained about
Malware and how vital It is to
make sure you get your computer
set up properly if you want to
avoid problems down the
road.
With all the viruses, spyware
and other threats on the
internet today, no computer is
safe and should be set up
without the proper protection.
I have a friend who connected
his laptop for 5 minutes to the
internet to download a driver
and BANG he caught a virus
The above example therefore
shows you how vital it is to
make sure that protection is in
place as soon as you set up
your new machine without any
excuses.
The following five steps will
make your computer a much
harder target for threats. You
still won't be completely
immune to problems, but 99% of
the time the threat will pass
you by, looking for the easy
mark.
1. Running a Personal
Firewall
A personal firewall is software
that basically makes your
computer invisible to hackers,
worms and other threats that
can infect your computer over
the internet.
Setting up a firewall is the
absolute first thing you should
do if you're going to connect
to the internet. Without a
firewall, your computer could
get infected in as little as
one minute after
connecting.
If you have a brand new
computer running Windows XP
Service Pack 2, there is a
firewall built into Windows. It
will already have been turned
on when you first set up your
computer. However, experience
has shown me that this is not
the best firewall to use
although certainly is much
better than doing
nothing.
If you're
running an older version of
Windows, even an earlier
version of Windows XP, there is
no firewall automatically set
up for you. In this case there
are two
possibilities:
- Your
computer came pre-loaded with a
firewall such as Norton
Internet Security or McAfee
Internet Security
You have no
firewall installed and should
download one ASAP.
If you don't
have any personal firewall
software installed, you should
do so right away. Zone Alarm is
a very good firewall program
that has a version that you can
download and install for
free.
You can download the free
version of Zone Alarm from
ZoneAlarm
2. Turn on Windows
Updates
Again, if you're running
Windows XP Service Pack 2 this
is already set up, but
otherwise you should turn on
Windows Updates. Microsoft
releases updates for security
problems and other bugs in
Windows on a regular basis.
These will only work with
Genuine copies of Windows
XP
These updates will keep your
computer running better, and
they often fix security issues
that could compromise your
information or privacy.
If you are running Windows XP
Service Pack 2, you can
double-check that automatic
updates are turned on by
clicking Start, then click
Control Panel, then
double-click Security Center.
The window that opens will tell
you if automatic updates are
turned on, and lets you turn
them on if they're not.
To turn on automatic updates in
earlier versions of Windows XP,
click on the Start menu, click
Control Panel and then
double-click on System. On the
"Automatic Updates" tab, click
the option to "Automatically
download the updates and
install them on the schedule I
specify."
To turn them on in Windows
2000, click on Start, click
Control Panel and then
double-click on Automatic
Updates. Again, click the
option to "automatically
download the updates and
install them on the schedule I
specify."
Now when Microsoft releases
updates, they will be
downloaded for you
automatically and Windows will
tell you when they are ready to
be installed.
3. Install & Update
Antivirus Software
Most new computers come with
antivirus software these days.
You might have Norton, McAfee,
PC-Cillin or another brand. No
matter what program you have,
you will need to update it when
you get connected to the
internet.
It doesn't matter how new your
computer is - there will be new
viruses, and new updates for
the antivirus software, since
it was loaded.
The exact process is different
for each brand of antivirus
program, but most of them will
have an icon in the bottom
right corner of your desktop,
beside the time. The icon might
be a picture of a shield
(McAfee), a stethoscope
(Norton) or something else.
In most cases, if you point to
the icon for your antivirus and
click the right mouse button, a
menu will pop up with an update
option. It could be simply
called update or could be
something like Live Update or
Download Latest Updates. If you
click on the update option
(with the left button this
time) it will install the
newest updates for you.
If you're not sure which icon
is for your antivirus software,
just point to each one for a
few seconds and a little title
should pop up telling you what
it is.
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