The Importance Of Proper Security For Your PC

The world online can be a scary place and sometimes it can get downright nasty. From viruses and spyware to internet identity theft, the information stored on your computer is under constant assault and should be protected at all costs. Why? Unscrupulous hackers will stop at nothing to get your precious personal information, and you have to stay one step ahead of them to ensure that they don't.

Let's begin our search for the reason why we should protect our PCs with the proper security by looking at the ways that they can be assaulted online. Here are just a few of the nasty things waiting for an unprotected PC online:

· Computer viruses are PC software programs that you accidentally download to your computer through an email attachment or other type of download. Once installed on your computer, a virus can interfere with your PC's operation; record, corrupt or delete data; and spread itself to other computers through your network or the internet.

· Identity theft occurs when some unscrupulous internet hacker, thief or otherwise bad guy gets a hold of your personal information such as your social security number, date of birth or other sensitive information and uses it to commit fraud or other crimes. Once obtained, this information is used to commit a wide variety of crimes. Those crimes include: credit card fraud, utilities fraud, banking and loan fraud, employment fraud, social security fraud, tax return fraud, medical fraud, securities and investment fraud, bankruptcy fraud, and immigration and government documentation fraud.

· Spyware are software programs that you download onto your computer along with many other software applications. This software is then used to track your online browsing habits so that you can be "hit" with pop ups that you will be more likely to respond to. Not only is this software an invasion of your privacy, it also can compromise your data and affect your PCs performance.

How to Protect Your PC

The number one thing that you can do to protect your PC is to have an operable firewall. A firewall can help protect your computer against security attacks. While most operating systems come with a firewall already in operation, you can update your firewall or get one for free if you don't have one from most PC security software companies.

In order to get the best PC security that software can provide, it is recommended that you use anti-spyware and anti-virus software in addition to a firewall. All of these anti-software and filters prevent hackers from accessing our personal information stored on our computers. They also protect against programs and viruses that we can unknowingly download. Once installed on our computer, these programs can direct us or our information to sites set on thievery.

More Protection for Your PC

Even though all of the above mentioned software applications go a long way in protecting your PC from harm, you may want additional protection to ensure that your PC's vulnerable spots are impenetrable. Here are just a few examples of the security software that you may want for your PC:

· Privacy Protector – As mentioned earlier, spyware can track everything that you do on your computer. This is because everything that you do on your computer leaves a trace or electronic trail that is stored on your computer. With the right software, prying eyes can see and access any sites you have visited and files you have accessed or shared while online by exposing this electronic trail. Privacy protection software helps reduce this risk by erasing the electronic trail that you have left behind.

· Secure Delete – When you delete files on your computer, you may think that they are trashed and inaccessible, but with the right recovery utilities, your deleted data can be recovered easily. Secure deletion software makes sure that your deleted data is gone forever and safe from sticky fingers.

· Spyware Detective – Added spyware detection software will help you spot spyware programs immediately and have them removed from your computer at the click of a button.

As you can see, there are many dangers lurking on the internet including spyware, viruses and hackers. Just one unprotected computer can be a highly lucrative capture for the right thieves and provide them with countless data that reveals everything from your browsing habits to credit card numbers. Make sure that your PC does not fall into their grasp. Protect it with the proper PC security programs.

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Condoms for Your PC - Log Your PC Maintenance

INTRODUCTION - For years you've known about maintenance for your PC. You have anti-virus and anti-spyware software. You use a firewall. You're careful about where you surf the Internet. You don't open every Email attachment that you get - even from friends. You may run your maintenance utilities as scheduled jobs. You may even have a script to run your utilities. But, do you know the results? Do you have a log of the results? Particularly important to you, if you have a network of PCs, is whether you have a central log from which you can see the results of your maintenance. Let's look at what you might want to track, including anti-virus and anti-spyware data.

ANTI-VIRUS & ANTI-SPYWARE - For each of these, a log record to show that they were run can be helpful. Otherwise, how do you know when they were last run? How can you ensure that they are run at least once each week? How can you tell who ran the maintenance on a PC in case there is a question about a problem?

PERFORMANCE - If you have a log an objective measurement of the performance of your PC, you could compare other PCs to it to determine whether there might be a problem within a particular model of PC. You could tell whether the performance of a specific PC was deteriorating. You could use it to pro-actively determine, when the test time exceeded a parameter, that there might be malware on the PC.

IP ADDRESS - When you find a problem that exists on or comes from a PC, you may find the IP address and want to know where that PC is located. If you track the current IP address, you can find the PC in question from your log entries rather than making a visit to each PC in order to get the IP address.

DISK SPACE - In order to run disk defragmentation effectively, you need to have about 20% of the disk space available. If you log the amount of disk space remaining, you can be pro-active about efficient disk defragmentation and planning for upgrades of disk capacity.

DISK CLEANUP & DEFRAGMENTATION - Log the fact that these maintenance items were run. As simple as the tasks may be, they may give you clues to whether your PC is performing poorly because these elements of maintenance were not performed or whether there is a more serious problem.

SUMMARY - It is time to become pro-active about PC maintenance and to begin PC maintenance management. Rather than a passive process in which you run several maintenance tasks, track the results and observe them. A log can give you great clues to tell you about your PC and to help to protect it to avoid problems.

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