The castles of yesterday were surrounded with crocodile-filled moats to prevent unwelcome intruders. Firewalls are the virtual equivalent of medieval moats and a good one will prevent unauthorized access to and from your system. If you use Windows XP, the built-in firewall affords little coverage, as it offers no outbound protection. A competent firewall will offer outbound protection and make your systems virtually invisible to crackers. ZoneAlarm, an excellent firewall, does all of this and is available free for personal use from www.zonelabs.com. You should not be on the Internet without it. In fact, this is such an important piece of protection – not just for your system but for the Internet as a whole – it should be mandated that every computer accessing the Internet be required to use a firewall or face penalties if compromised. Quite simply, if your system is cracked, it can be used to launch attacks against others. Thus, inattention to personal computer security not only affects the individual, but it places others at risk as well.
Use antivirus software
Most new computers come with antivirus software pre-installed. If you don't have it, buy it. Either way, it needs to be updated frequently. A good antivirus package will allow you to schedule automatic updates. If it does not, switch to one that does. Configure it to check for updates every 24 hours. When entire new versions are released, upgrade – even if it means spending more money. If you can’t afford to purchase antivirus software, you really can’t afford to be on the Internet. If you use McAfee VirusScan, it cannot work with ZoneAlarm. There are many excellent antivirus products available on the market, but very few excellent firewalls. You might consider spending the money you saved on the free ZoneAlarm for an antivirus package that works cohesively with it.
Supplement your antivirus software
Either through education and proper configuration of your system, or through the use of third-party add-ons, robust protection requires more than just a firewall and updated antivirus software. Knowledgeable filtering of email is perhaps one of the most important pieces of additional protection you can employ. Even with the short few hours it takes signature scanning vendors to release updates, fast moving email worms can gain widespread infection. This can be avoided by making intelligent decisions ahead of time to better secure your mail client. Email should be considered hostile until proven otherwise. That attachment from Auntie Em is more likely to be a virus she is oblivious to being infected with. If you can’t afford the cost of the additional add-ons, you can tighten your security for free. The Email Help Center provides the how. Pegasus offers the most secure email client. If you don’t want to change mail clients and you use Outlook Express, at least upgrade to version 6.0 SP1 - it offers greater security than previous versions. If you use Outlook and don’t want to spend extra money on add-ons for protection, either upgrade to Outlook 2002 or install the Outlook Security patch. If you can’t spend the money, can’t upgrade, and can’t configure your settings for optimum security, you should not be on the Internet.
0 comments
Post a Comment