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How to protect yourself from online attack
by: Frann Leach
It's a jungle out there on the net, but by using these few simple tricks and traps, anybody can protect themselves from the virtual beasts that lurk there, waiting to attack the unwary.

Online security is not just for big corporations. It's true that they stand to lose more, in terms of value, than you or I, but they have sufficient reserves to be able to weather the storm, whereas the average small business or man on the street is in a much more precarious position.

Using your credit or debit card online is no longer as dangerous as it once was, but
there are other ways in which use of your computer can be made difficult, even impossible. Viruses are just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many different ways in which your computer can be preyed on whilst you are online, and even after you have disconnected. Apart from worms, viruses, trojans, data miners, and keystroke loggers, there is spyware, adware and who knows what else out there. All of them trying to take advantage of you and/or your computer.

These products have many purposes. Very few of them are purely vindictive or disruptive.
For example, many viruses which install themselves onto a computer do it no harm at all. Instead, they use the email program running on the computer to send out spam, starting with everyone in the computer's address book. And although everybody I know deletes spam immediately, presumably there must be some sales, or this type of virus would be of no value to the author.

It is important to be as secure as you can, because in extreme cases, your very identity
can be stolen, and used in ways that will disadvantage you for a long time to come. And though this may be quite rare, there are many viruses or trojans which disrupt the data you have on your computer, in some cases causing so much damage that you have to reformat the disk and start again - which is fine if you have kept backups (as we have all been taught to do), but how many of us really do back our data up? We know we should do this, but when was the last time you made a complete copy of all your data?

This sort of attack tends to be at the amateur end of the scale. But if you have
children who surf the net, or you correspond with someone who has kids who surf, you are
at risk. The areas where they surf are some of the most likely sources of this type of
virus. But any of us can fall victim just by a single moment of inattention when checking
through our emails.

So how can you protect yourself from all these different threats?
- Get yourself a firewall. Sysoft offer a free personal firewall that is very good, and makes your computer invisible to many types of attack - the best defence possible.
- If you haven't got one already, install a virus-checker, such as AVG, which is available for free download and set it to start up whenever you turn on your computer.
- Schedule a daily or weekly update for your virus checker at a time when you are usually
online, but not using the computer for anything requiring 100% of its resources.
- Get a copy of Ad-Aware, available for free download, and run it once a week.
- Download and install a free copy of Spyware Blaster This will load up when you start up your computer and sit in the background, preventing access to your private data by thousands of different types of spyware. Do make sure it is regularly updated, though, or you may fall foul of a new attacker.
- Run Spybot Search and Destroy once a week to check for anything missed by your other
lines of defence.
- Even though you may have installed all these pieces of software, keep them up to date and use them religiously, it is still vital to take care with incoming emails. If you get an email which is very short and doesn't 'sound' like the person it is supposed to be from, with an attachment, DO NOT open it. Delete it straight away. If there is any doubt, still delete it, but you could email your friend and just check with them that they didn't send you anything. It is far better to be safe, and cause a tiny bit of inconvenience, than to end up trashing your hard disk.
- When making a payment online, make sure the connection is secure. Secure sites start with https:// instead of the usual http://. On IE, a yellow lock symbol will appear in the bottom right hand corner of the screen in the status bar.
- Don't make payments on public computers, such as at internet cafes, libraries and so on. You don't know how secure these are, they are very likely to be infected by keystroke recording viruses.
- In addition, if logging onto an Instant Messenger such as Yahoo or MSN on a public computer, make sure the box to remember the password is UNCHECKED, or someone could steal your identity and send offensive material to your buddies (this happened to a friend of mine).
- Finally, if it is practical, change your password regularly. However, do not fall into the trap of changing it so frequently that you cannot remember it and have to write it down or put it in a data file. That would be a lot less secure than keeping to the same password you've always had.

(To make it easy for you, I have collected links to all the above-mentioned security programs http://www.informationzone.biz/security.html

Using these tools, you can protect yourself from almost any malicious program, and if you do pick up a virus or piece of spyware, for example, you will catch it quickly, before it can do irrecoverable damage.


About the author:
About the Author:
Frann Leach, Ramsgate, Kent, UK
http://www.informationzone.biz/

Frann lives in Ramsgate, Kent, UK with her computer and her cat, Muffin. She has her own referral marketing business and is always on the lookout to recruit go-getters like herself.
Find out more at: http://www.this1works.biz



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 Top 10 Ways To Protect Yourself From Computer Viruses
 by: Jim Faller

As more and more people are becoming comfortable using their computers at school, home or in the office it’s only a matter of time before they encounter a computer virus. Here are our top 10 steps to protect you from computer viruses.

Use a high quality anti-virus program. There are many different anti-virus computers programs on the market some of them are better than others. Look to reputable computer magazines or websites for ratings to help you find the one that matches your needs.

Always use your anti-virus software. Make sure your anti-virus software is always turned on and scanning, incoming and outgoing email messages, and any software programs you run.

Keep your antivirus programs up to date. Most programs come with a yearly subscription make sure you take advantage of the updates. More advanced programs allow you to schedule updates or full system scans for “off hours” like 2AM when you aren’t likely to be using your computer.

Keep your computer up to date. From time to time operating systems fall victim to security holes or issue updates. Make sure you check periodically to make sure you are running stable up to date versions of your software.

Backup your data regularly. Most windows computer users keep their documents in the “My documents” folder. This makes it easy to back up all of your important documents. Make weekly or monthly copies to CD or USB drives.

If you use floppy disks or USB drives on public computers like your school computer lab, Kinko’s, or even digital photo printing store make sure you scan them for viruses. Public computers are notorious for not being up to date and properly protected.

Be wary of email attachments. Treat any email attachment as potentially dangerous. Never open attachments from people you weren’t expecting. Also be careful of attachments from people you know but weren’t expecting. Many computer viruses replicate themselves by reading the contacts from an infected computer.

Use text email if possible. While HTML email is prettier and allows you more control over formatting it also can carry computer viruses. If you use text based email the only way to get a virus is by opening an attachment.

Use downloaded freeware and shareware files or software with caution. Try to download them from popular reputable sources that scan the programs before they are uploaded. To make sure you are safe scan the program before you install it on your computer.

Be wary of links in IM or instant messaging software. Don’t accept invitations from people you don’t know and never click a link from someone you don’t trust, they can easily redirect you to another website that will try to install a virus on your computer system.

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