You Are Under Attack
By Bob Peters, WEBtech
"The honeymoon is over. You can no longer blindly use your computer without protection"
Most of us have no idea how a car really works. Sure, we can drive it from home to the grocery store and back, but outside of putting gas in it when we are told to so, we're pretty much in the dark.
Most of us treat our computers like our cars. We have learned how to use them to navigate the net and send e-mail, but we don't know how they work and we really don't want to either.
Which brings me to the point of this article: The honeymoon is over. You can no longer blindly use your computer and not pay attention to some important safety issues. The difference between a car and a computer today is that you do not have a bunch of nasty little kids and dubious corporations trying to sabotage your car every time you take it out for a spin.
What's the problem?
Two villains are trying to take over your computer: hackers and corporate slime. Their tools of the trade are viruses, worms, adware and malware. They are trying to annoy you, waste your time, steal information about you, wreck your computer... or even worse, steal your money. They used to be a petty annoyance... now they are a real threat.
Who is at risk?
Are you connected to the Internet? Do you use Windows? If you answered yes to either of these questions, then YOU ARE AT RISK... and the situation is going to get worse before it gets better.
Are you protected?
You already (hopefully) have an up-to-date anti-virus program running, so you should be protected, right?
Wrong.
Your anti-virus program will only protect you from viruses. It will not protect you from worms, adware or malware. In the past, you had to click on the malacious file in order to become infected. With today's malware, that is no longer true - you can become infected by simply connecting to a network. To be fully protected, you should have already taken the following actions:
- Anti-Virus Progam Installed
- Personal Firewall Program Installed
- Windows Updated
- Anti-Adware Progam Installed
- Anti-Malware Program Installed
If you have not taken all of the above actions, then follow these simple steps to protect yourself and keep your computer clean.
Step 1: Install and Update your Anti-Virus Program
The first step is to protect yourself and your computer by installing an anti-virus program such as Norton AntiVirus or McAfee VirusScan. Make sure you use a fully registered version, and regularly update it. Learn how to recognize viruses by reading WEBtech's Article on Viruses
Step 2: Install a Personal Firewall Program
The key role of the firewall program is to prevent any authorized access to your computer (either incoming or outgoing) while it is connected to the Internet. Whenever you connect to the Internet, or instant message a friend, or play on online game, you are joining a network that could include hackers or computers that are infected with worms. These people and/or programs may try to access information on your computer without you knowing it. A firewall stops them dead in their tracks. Most firewall products are easy to use and require little effort on your part to maintain. A popular free firewall software product is called Zone Alarm, although Norton and McAfee both make firewall products as well.
Step 3: Update Windows
Windows is a great software program (although some might debate that) used by the vast majority of computer users. It is the core program (operating system) that runs your computer. However, like all software programs, it has its weaknesses which can range from bugs to security loopholes. As soon as these weaknesses are discovered, Microsoft issues an update that will fix the problem. The problem is that there are a lot of nasty hackers working very hard to find new weaknesses every day. These hackers then design viruses and computer programs called worms to exploit the weaknesses in your operating system, giving them access to your computer. If infected, these programs will steal information from you, delete valuable information or simply crash you computer. In order to counteract this activity, Microsoft issues updates on a regular basis.
Regardless of whether you are running Windows 98, ME or XP, you should keep your software updated. Microsoft has made it easy for you. Simply go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ and click on the Scan for Updates button. Microsoft will scan your computer, and if there are any updates for you to install it will list them. You can then download and install the updates as you see fit.
Step 4: Install an Anti-Adware Program
Adware is software that runs on your computer whose main purpose is to present advertising messages to you. It can be quite annoying, especially when messages pop-up all the time, or the computer tries to connect to the Internet even after you are finished your session. Often the adware has been installed on your computer at the same time another software program was installed, such as most free programs that you download from the Internet (e.g. music/file sharing programs like KaZaA). The adware can also send details of the websites you visit and other information from your computer (which can include your email address) to advertisers so they can target you with popup ads and spam.
You can protect yourself from adware by running an anti-adware program. Perhaps the most effective and popular is Lavasoft's Ad-Aware, which you can download for free.
Step 5: Install an Anti-Malware Program
Malware is an acronym of MALicious softWARE, and refers to any software program that has been designed to damage your system, including viruses, worms, Trojans, Denial of Service and other such attacks. Malware is a broad term, becuase it refers to a wide variety of programs. Anti-virus and anti-adware programs are great at what they do, but they are not designed to catch all malware programs.
There is no single program that will protect you against all malware, but there are additional programs that complement anti-virus and anti-adware programs. These programs include A-Squared and Spybot Search and Destroy. Installing and running more than one of these programs may seem like overkill, but again, wearing two sets of socks on a cold winter day never hurt anyone either.
A Handy Chart
Use the following chart as a handy checklist to ensure that you are protected and your computer is clean. Update the chart every month.
| Program |
Installed |
Up-to-date |
Auto-Protect |
| Anti-Virus |
Installed |
Updated |
Auto-Protect is On |
| Firewall |
|
|
|
| Windows Update |
|
|
|
| Anti-Adware |
|
|
|
| Anti-Malware |
|
|
|
Links
Here are some links to additional information about the above mentioned software and related issues:
Read more articles in the Library section.
|
