12 Useful Tips To Secure Your PC

I found this article on Smashapps.org, with some useful tips to help you keep your information and your computer safer.

Here is a link to the original article: 12 Useful Tips To Secure Your PC In 2010

I have hi-lited the 12 points below, along with my own comments.

Use an "anti-virus software" and keep it updated - pretty self-explanatory. 

Keep your Firewall turned on - Firewall programs block common hacker threats. This is software that runs on your computer. Don’t have more than 1 running as they may conflict with each other. Also, a hardware firewall (an actual box that is between your local network and the Internet) will provide additional protection. Before I had a firewall/router, my software router was constantly logging blocked attempts (from the outside world). These virtually went away with the installation of the hardware firewall/router.

Use anti-Spyware software – I liked the Wikipedia Article about the effects of Spyware.

Use genuine OS and keep it updated - Do not use pirated OS package to run your PC as it won’t provide you with any updates which will inform your system against latest threats online. Moreover it's a crime to use a pirated software. Use Windows 7 and keep your OS regularly updated. You might look at the Linux operating system as an alternative to Windows, especially if the machine is mainly used for web-surfing. 

Handling email attachments - Be careful of any suspicious and unexpected emails and attachment. (EVEN if it appears to come from somebody that you know)  Hackers more often will use your inbox to get into your PC to hack information or plant a virus. Best way to handle these emails is by deleting these suspicious emails right away.

Strengthen your web browser - Microsoft's Internet Explorer is most commonly use browser, hence it is subjected to a large number of security threats than any other web browser. To cut down these threats online, start using another browser Firefox, Google Chrome or Opera straight away.

Keep your passwords safe - Do not use common passwords like 123456, jesus, password, love etc. instead use tough combination's which includes alphabets, numeric and symbols. Hacker use various techniques to crack simple passwords, one of the most common method is Dictionary attack, hacker tries different combination's and phrases using some software to decrypt your password. Use at least an eight digit password, don't share you password with anyone, change your passwords after some time. Also, do not use the same password on every website that you use. There are programs that can keep your passwords safe (I use KeePass which has many nice features, and can auto-generate new passwords for you)

Secure downloading from internet - Don't download anything just because it's free. If it's a free software then you must read reviews about it, user reviews will give you an idea if the software is worth downloading or not. (I like Download.com and Kim Komando’s site) Avoid downloading data from untrusted websites. Also don't use torrents to download files because torrent is one of the major sources of viruses.

Use a dynamic IP address - A computer's IP address (a numeric address which is assigned to your computer or network on the internet) is said to be dynamic when it changes time after time. Usually whenever you will restart your computer the IP of your PC is subjected to change. It's better to have a dynamic IP address because it's not easy for a hacker to track a computer because it's IP keeps changing after every session. As one of the commenters to this article pointed out, hackers may scan a range of IP addresses that are used by your Internet Provider, and a better solution may be a NAT (Network Address Translator), basically what the hardware firewall-routers do.

Protect yourself from wireless connections - Hackers sometimes setup a free and unprotected wifi connections in locations near apartments, offices, complexes, airports, hotels etc. These are often traps setup by hackers to get inside your PC and extract information out of it. If you use public wireless connection then try not to access your online bank accounts or payal account etc. If you have a wireless network at home or work, make sure it’s secure and not un-secured, or else somebody could sit outside your driveway with a laptop and get past your firewall/router, which is your first line of defense from the outside.

Never store all information in one place - Hacker are always looking for these kinds of notebook where they can find all your confidential and personal information such as your passwords, credit card details, bank account details, etc. Do not create any such online diary to store all your confidential information at one place, by creating it, you will only be helping a hacker.

Use of virtual keyboard - Whenever you login to your bank account, use virtual keyboard to enter your ID and password to reduce the risk of keystroke logging. It's not easy for a malware to monitor the display and mouse movements to gather the data entered via virtual keyboard. I will have to find out more info on this one. There are programs that will detect if your computer has some keylogging malware on it. See Kim Komando’s site for one.

I hope you find this information useful. Remember, Here is a link to the original article.