How are you staying protected?

Here’s a simple checklist for you:

• Practice safe computing procedures
• Keep all your software updated
• Install anti-virus software on every computer
• Install anti-malware software on every computer
• Install a personal firewall on every computer
• Backup often
• Have a recovery plan in place

Safe Computing Practices

This basically means that you need to be careful, and use common sense. Don’t open unknown attachments, install unknown programs, use P2P file sharing, and things like that. It only takes a few seconds to click on something… and hours and perhaps days to recover from the damage.

Software Updates

In a previous blog I mentioned Secunia as one of the good guys out there helping to keep your software updated. It’s important to update all your software on a regular basis. That includes Windows, Office, Adobe, Java, Anti-virus, Anti-spyware, and anything else you can think of. Malware programmers are always looking for holes into your computer and unpatched software is a prime target. Out of date protection is worse than no protection because it lulls you into a false sense of security.

Anti-virus

There are lots of good anti-virus programs, so choose one that you like and stick with that. Here are a couple links to some free anti-virus programs that I’ve used and recommended. Just remember to only install one anti-virus. Having multiples can cause conflicts and render both useless leaving you exposed.

Avira Antivir Personal

MS Security Essentials

Anti-Malware

This one is easy for me to recommend. I’ve used it and it’s tried and tested to be one of the best.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

Firewall

At a minimum you should be running the built in Windows Firewall. But it’s recommended that you install a personal firewall as well. The Windows firewall blocks incoming ports preventing the bad guys from getting into your computer. A personal firewall also blocks outgoing ports which helps to prevent malware from “phoning home” and downloading more malware onto your computer. Here are a couple links for personal firewalls.

Online Armor

Outpost Firewall

Backup

There are many different backup solutions available today: from manually burning CDs/DVDs of your photos, to using software to copy important files to external USB storage, and even using scheduled backups to online storage. The important thing is to backup early and backup often. You never know when disaster may strike so always keep a copy of your important files.

Recovery

Recovery is as simple as reversing your backup plan, or at least it should be. Again, you can only recover what you’ve already backed up. If you’ve used backup software to save your files to external media, CDs/DVDs/USB storage, etc, then make sure to store a copy of that software along with your media.

I hope that this checklist helps to outline the steps to staying protected on the internet. The only truly safe and secure computer is one that is not connected to the internet and unplugged from the wall. Of course it may be safe but it’s not very useful. 🙂

As always, if you have any questions or comments feel free to contact me.
Be safe out there,
Erik