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Three Ways to Prevent Computer Infection

June 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Viruses infect millions of computers every day.  Most are common corruptions of files, data, and other personal information.  Whether you are using wireless internet for laptops or cable connections for desktops, your security must never be compromised. Actually, most threats can be prevented as well.  Here’s how:

 

It is important to install an anti-virus program on your computer immediately after setting it up.  Most stores will do this since the sell the programs right along with your machine. Top anti-virus software is available and blocks malicious programs from acquiring information and adhering to search histories and other potentially pertinent bits of the user’s personal life.  Firewalls are common parts of these programs, and they can help block harmful websites and advertisements.  Also, this software periodically scans the computer for any new intruders, thus keeping the machine virus free.  Updating the actual software is also crucial for keeping your computer clean.  Every so often, updates can be sent online or bought in the store.

 

Computer users should be sure to scan attachments in emails for viruses before opening them.  Although most people only receive emails from those they know, every so often a harmful email slips in.  Many people call these spam emails, and some networks deposit them directly into a spam folder.  However, if content is questioned, be sure to scan the email first.  Many companies do this as the email comes in, regardless of user preference.  It helps keep the computer safe.

 

Another way to restore and protect computers is by isolating them from networks if they have viruses.  Viruses can be detected by malfunctioning of the computer, slow connection speeds and activity, or sudden power losses.  By disconnecting the infected system, users can prevent the virus’ spread.

Filed Under: Anti-Virus, Protection, Software Tagged With: , ,

Managing the Internet

May 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Anyone who manages an organization knows that the larger it gets, the more difficult it becomes to manage. People who work closely with the Internet, from engineers to philosophers, are realizing that the same quandary applies to managing the Internet.

There are slightly fewer than two trillion Internet users around the world today; in 1995 there were16 million people using the Internet. At the same time there are approximately 155 million websites operating world wide. Using the Internet you can find everything from online poker games to tips on how to maintain a garden.  Given the combination of large – and rapidly growing – number of Internet users and the proliferation of websites, the concern becomes how to equitably manage the Internet effectively while striking a balance between maintaining individual privacy and supporting the free flow of appropriate information.

While the Internet is undeniably the source of more information than man has ever had at his disposal in one place, it also faces a growing threat from cyber criminals who see the exponential growth of users as potential targets or unwitting assistants for scams. Eliminating cyber crime is a key element in designing workable management standards.

In 2009 the Federal Communication Commission’s Openinternet.gov website posted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for “reasonable network management.” The NPRM stressed the need for broadband Internet access providers to adopt “reasonable” practices; the need to reduce or mitigate the effects of Internet congestion on address accuracy; the reduction of unwanted and harmful Internet traffic; and increased action to prevent the transfer of unlawful content across the Internet. The debate over this NPRM will be centered on what contributors consider to be reasonable.

In August 2010 the Washington Post reported that the U.S. Commerce Department is requesting help from the private sector to update the approach to managing the Internet for the first time in over ten years. The Commerce Department’s Internet Policy Task Force is initially asking for help on two inquiries: data privacy and cyber security.

These initiatives are a long overdue and important start.

Filed Under: Common Solutions, Protection Tagged With: , ,

To Use a Registry Cleaner or Not

January 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Have you ever had a pop up window tell you your registry is damaged or corrupted? Did it scare you into visiting the website and considering buying the suggested software? Most likely you thought about it and wondered what it was pointing you towards. Maybe you had noticed your computer was running slowly and thought there may be some truth to what this pop up ad was saying.  All over the internet you can find ads for registry cleaners and it can seem like an important utility to use.

There is no evidence that a registry cleaner will speed up your computer. It may or may not help your computer in the way that you want it to help you and honestly it may create instability in your computer system. The reason people often use registry cleaners is because they are looking for something that will clean off the malware, spyware or viruses that are on their computer. Again there is no certainty that a registry cleaner will remove these types of programs.

First of all, don’t use the first registry cleaner that advertises to you in a pop up window. Just as you wouldn’t buy a car from a pop up ad with doing no other research don’t buy the registry cleaner this way either. Go to a trusted site, maybe of a computer magazine or computer resource site that you trust and look for some information on registry cleaners.Not all registry cleaners are the same and the possibility of it causing a problem in your system should steer you away from them.

A visit to the Microsoft site revealed a number of entries stating never to use registry cleaner. The reason for this is that Windows does not load the entire registry so there is no reason it is the cause of the slow down. More than likely the registry is doing little more than using up some hard drive space.

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Online Tricks: Education Resources for Free

January 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

If you’re looking to get an education, there are plenty of ways you can do it. There are also a lot of great ways to get information, so you can determine which college you might want to attend, and whether you want to go to school in person or online. Online college directories are one of the best freebies that are available to you online when you’re looking for degrees. They can help you find all of the information you need, so you don’t have to be stuck without the info you’re looking for in order to make a good decision. Picking the wrong college could be disastrous and expensive, so make sure that you take that into account when making your choice.

When you use a site that aggregates all of the available online colleges, you can much more easily search schools and find out information about them. You can look at the costs, the pros and cons, the ratio of professors to students, and other issues. That all helps you make a choice about which college will be the best for you. You don’t want to make a hasty choice, or you might end up regretting it. Hasty choices about education are usually bad ones. When you can get a lot of information for free, it makes things much easier.

There are all kinds of online degrees that you can get, so you should also take the time to be sure about what you want to study. Spending time and money on an education is great if you’re really going to use it, but you might find that there isn’t a market for your particular degree or that you aren’t as interested in a field of study as you thought. The more you know in advance, the better chance you’ll have of picking the school that’s right for you.

Filed Under: General, Protection Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Is Technology Advancing Too Quickly?

January 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

People talk all the time about the great technological advances that are seen everywhere. They discuss having high-tech computers, digital cameras that can take video, cell phones to access the Internet, and even navigation and entertainment systems in their vehicles. That all sounds great, but is it really needed? If it’s not, at what point is enough enough? Apparently, that point hasn’t been reached yet. People still want more things and they’ll often go out of their way to get them – standing in line for hours for the latest and greatest gadget.

If you’re one of those people, consider asking yourself whether technology is perhaps advancing too quickly for its own good. That can happen with medicine, especially, which is one area where technology has grown by leaps and bounds recently. In the medical field, too much technology might seem impossible, but it’s really not. If you aren’t getting the right kinds of results and diagnoses, you aren’t saving lives and helping people, no matter how much technology is available to you. Just because you have a fancy, expensive test or machine, you aren’t being helpful if that test or machine isn’t accurate.

Creating and developing technology too quickly can sometimes also mean that you’re getting false positives and frightening patients who might not really be sick. Detecting one cancer cell in the blood doesn’t mean that a person actually has cancer that needs treatment, or that he or she will ever actually get cancer. Most tests are good, and they’re important, but there are some that are too far ‘advanced’ for their own good, and the good of the patients. If this kind of technology were delayed so that more testing could be done, more people would feel confident in the technology that was being used on them and their loved ones.

Filed Under: Internet, Protection Tagged With: , , ,

Has Your Account Been Hi-Jacked?

January 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

It has happened to many people. You are not the only one. Don’t be alarmed and scared take action immediately. The even is to sign into your email account to find a number of messages from people in your address book asking you why you are trying to sell them something. You log in to Facebook to find that you have been sending out advertisements to people and you never lifted a finger. It is most definitely a confusing moment. You check your sent folder and find that you have been up all night sending emails to people you haven’t sent a message to in years. You have been hi-jacked.

Hi-jacking is when someone finds a way into your account and uses you account for their own interests. Often this takes the form of advertising, but can be far more malicious. It is important to know the extent of the hi-jacking and to be sure that no personal information has been stolen. If you are someone who keeps passwords in their email, check those accounts, make sure there is no intrusion. Do not start by sending out numerous apologies that will come later. First things first, is the saying right? Change your password. Change your password on any account that may be connected to the account that has been hi-jacked. And do not keep an email folder called passwords or finance.

Once you have changed all passwords, it is time to do an investigation. Most likely it was you that inadvertently shared your password. You may have received an email that asked for your personal information and in some way appeared to be an official email from your account provider. Folks, these are never real. There is never a need to verify your account information and they will not shut you down. You are the business and closing accounts is not in the companies best interest. No question, never share your passwords. Use different passwords and make them more complicated than your last name. After your investigation, send out some apologies, even if nobody wants or trusts another email from you, do it.

Filed Under: Common Problems, Protection Tagged With: ,

Computer Security and Data Safety

December 31, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Any home computer owner who has ever had their computer bitten by a virus will tell you that it is frustrating and maddening. A virus can also be expensive and time consuming to remove. With those thoughts in mind, there are a number of steps that owners can take to improve computer security and protect data.

The single most proactive step owners can take is to purchase an anti-virus software program installed on their computers. An anti-virus program routinely checks every file to look for patterns and profiles that fit a virus signature. There are several good anti-virus programs on the market that will check incoming and outgoing documents, email and attachments as well as the files you share when you download ares the P2P file sharing software. The software should also include a two way firewall.

Another important action that computer owners can take is to periodically back up all important documents on a CD or with an online storage provider. Many online computer service providers provide backup storage, often free of charge to users of their service.

Users should be particularly careful with unsolicited email – especially email with attachments. Messages and attachments sent from an unknown source can contain viruses that are activated by opening the email. A good rule of thumb is if the name of the sender is unfamiliar, do not open the email or better yet, delete it without opening.

Always use strong passwords that are a combination of letters, numbers and symbols. Users should avoid passwords that are easily guessed, such as individual name, family names or pets names. Any words that might be familiar to others who know the user should not be used.

Be aware of the potential for problems with items downloaded from the Internet. Ensure that the download source can be trusted. Free computer programs that do not include instructions for installing and use or that do not provide a contact person or number for help with the program should be avoided.

Filed Under: Anti-Virus, Protection, Software Tagged With: , ,

Trust and the Internet – The Growth of Computer and Data Security

December 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

In its infancy the Internet was built and designed by and for academics and computer professionals to communicate with each other. The notion of unethical intruders stealing information was not even considered by the Internet’s builders and developers because they were sharing concepts and information that rarely had any real monetary value. To them the Internet was a safe and trustworthy place to communicate.

The Internet grew and spread – into entertainment, commerce and finance – during the late 1980s and on into the 1990s. The first Internet Service Provider (ISP) companies saw the lucrative potential and made the Internet available to the general public. As more and more people began using these pioneer ISPs services a new breed of criminal emerged. They were computer savvy and able to “hack” into computer systems to steal personal information and money from computer users. The Internet was no longer safe and trustworthy.

Computer designers and the ISP companies began to build more security into computers by improving confidentiality to ensure that information could be accessed could only gained by authorized users. The primary intent of advances in computer software was to protect users personal information.

With each improvement in computers and computer operating systems design, intruders became more sophisticated in their ability to penetrate computer security measures with an array of viruses, worms and other malicious programs designed to disable and corrupt computer operating systems and programs or access personal data – information including bank accounts, social security numbers and credit card data.

Intruders also became more advanced in their techniques and capable of using individual computer Internet connections to get into a vulnerable computer’s hard drive disc space and processor to use that computer for attacks on other computers. Hacking became increasingly difficult to detect and track.

The intensity and depth of criminal intrusion in computers spawned a new industry within the Internet community focused entirely on improving computer security, data safety and trustworthiness.

Filed Under: Anti-Virus, Protection, Software Tagged With: , ,

Viruses, Worms and Trojan Horses – New Definitions

December 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

A Virus was once a viral infection, a Worm was fishing bait and a Trojan Horse was Greek mythology. The personal computer has expanded those definitions.

Computer viruses are small bits of software code that are added to legitimate programs, modify the program and then replicate themselves. Once opened viruses can do extensive damage to programs and operating systems in a computer.

The earliest viruses appeared in the 1980s on floppy disks. Once the disk was inserted and the drive and running, the virus would find another program to attach to and do its damage. Because software programs were much smaller the viruses were spread from disk to disk. This factor minimized the spread of viruses – until the Internet became accessible to home computers. Then, users could go to Internet bulletin boards and download programs onto a floppy disk. If the program contained a virus, the computer became infected.

Email viruses are contained in an email or in email attachments. Often, the virus is activated when the user double-clicks on the email or the attachment. Once activated, the email replicates itself and automatically mails itself to up to 50 addresses in the user’s address book.

A Trojan Horse virus is a computer program that appears to perform one function and, in fact, performs a different and harmful function when launched. It generally does significant damage to the computer.

Worm viruses typically reside on a network. They find security holes in a computer and attach to a resident program. A worm can simultaneously do damage to a computer while slowing down Internet traffic and taking up bandwidth space.

As viruses evolved with the transition from floppy disks to CDs that protected programs from modification, hackers created viruses that loaded into a computer’s memory and ran in the background as part of a two phase action. Once the virus infected the computer – the first phase – the second damaging “attack” phase would occur, triggered by another computer event.

Filed Under: Anti-Virus, Protection, Software Tagged With: , ,

Extra Computer Security Tips

December 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Above and beyond the absolutely essential requirement to have a strong security program that includes anti-virus protection that includes email, a two-way firewall, backup capability and spyware protection installed on a computer, there are several other steps and practices that can further protect a computer.

Windows is the most popular and commonly used computer operating system. Consequently, Windows based computers are most often targeted by viruses. One solution to preventing virus attacks is to replace Windows with a different operating system such as UNIX because it is less common on PCs and therefore a less likely virus target.

Avoid downloading programs from unfamiliar sources on the Internet. Better yet, buy well known and reliable computer programs from reputable outlets. With a receipt in hand it’s much easier to resolve problems with the seller if they arise.

If a computer has Microsoft Word installed as its word processing program, make sure that Microsoft’s Macro Virus Protection is enabled in Word. Also, do not ever run macros in a received document.

Look at the extension on every email attachment before opening it and do not double-click on attachment with an executable extension such as .com, .exe or .vbs. Once opened, an executable file has the potential and freedom to do anything to a computer.

Emails in general need to be scrutinized carefully before opening them. If the message is coming from an unknown or unfamiliar source, delete it. When forwarding an email recognize that some people will not open forwarded messages to avoid viruses. Emails received from a reliable source can be sent on to others by copying and pasting the contents to a new email page.

Finally, use common sense. If something doesn’t feel right about a program or an email, trust instinct and don’t open it. Most of the time gut reactions are accurate

Filed Under: Anti-Virus, Protection Tagged With: , ,
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