Safe Computer Practices

May 20

Email and Internet Safety
Your habits are what determine your safety online. There are some simple everyday steps that you can do to protect yourself from the online bad guys.

Refrain from opening email attachments that you are not expecting.
Do not click on links in emails.
Do not open emails from people that you do not know and turn off preview pane in Microsoft Outlook.
Do not surf to websites that you are not completely certain that they are safe.
Do not download files from any file sharing websites
Finally, keep Microsoft Windows and your other software up to date with Auto-update.

A very short while ago, email attachments were the most common way of spreading viruses. In 2007, an average of two million emails were sent per second and 70% of them were spam and viruses. Today, it is still very much a threat and we still have to be very aware of it but now we have to be vigilant in other ways too.

Phishing is a term that you may have heard but still you are not quite sure what it is. Scam artists want your money and they are going to try and trick you into giving them your online bank and credit card passwords. They may send you a email that looks like your bank is telling you that your checking account needs attention or your credit card number has been stolen. In the email, there will be a link to log on to your online account and verify some information. The link in the email will actually send you to a fake website that will steal your log on information and then take your money or your identity. The only way to be sure that the email is legitimate, is to exit out of your email and log onto your account the way you normally do. If you suspect that this email is a fraud, contact your bank by phone using only the phone number from your paper statements. Remember, any legitimate company will not ask you by email your user name or password.

If you receive an email from someone you do not know, I would be willing to stake money that it is spam. Avoid temptation and do no open it. Personally, I would delete it and not think twice about it. These emails may contain trojan viruses or other types of malware that will give the bad guys access to your computer. To completely protect yourself, you must turn off preview pane in Outlook. If you do not turn it off, the preview pane will act the same as opening that email. Here is a link to instructions on how to turn it off: Turn off preview pane in Outlook.

Recently a new "Buzz word" was created in the tech world called Zero Day Exploit. Microsoft and other software companies become aware of a problem in their software and send out updates to fix these problems. Malicious software authors de-manufacture these updates to discover the problem that was fixed and exploit the prolem. Many people running Microsoft products and other software do not have auto updates turned on and because of this, they are vulnerable to these exploits. The only way to be safe is to turn on auto update. To do so in Microsoft Windows click on Start, Control Panel, and then click on Windows Update. Change the settings to Install Updates Automatically and set it to do so daily.

If you can follow these simple steps, then you can do more to protect yourself better than most antivirus software.

4:05 PM GMT | Read comments(0)

Internet Safety
As we use are computers more and more in our daily life, we need to be more conscience of our own habits to stay protected online. We can spend hundreds of dollars on software that claim to protect us from spam, viruses, trojan viruses, phishing scams, and spyware but in reality all this software does is protect us from older known threats. Malicious software authors and online scam artists are finding new computer exploits everyday and the software companies that we pay to protect us are slow to respond.

6:54 PM GMT | Read comments(0)

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