Home Computer Security
... used would talk together. Since then the internet has basically been opened to the public so that anyone can access it so “it has become inadequate to rely principally on trust”. They have been making improvements to the protocols that the internet uses to increase security, but that is not enough to keep your own computer equipment secure that is there for keeping the information secure that is being sent over the internet. A lot of the information sent over the internet is in clear text, you never know who might be listening so it is a good idea not to send personal information without some form of controlling who can read it. What does this mean and why should you care? It means that any information you receive from some other computer on the Internet should not be trusted automatically and unconditionally. When you trust an email message that turns out to have a harmful virus attached to it, your computer can be infected, your files destroyed, and your work lost. And that’s why you should care. How To The first step you should take is to install an anti-virus program. This is to protect your computer from programs that can destroy data, steal information, and/or physically take over your computer. Even once you have the anti-virus program installed you will need to run it regularly, at least once a week if not more and you need to keep the pattern files up to date to make sure it can fight the most current virus’s and Trojan’s. The next step would be to install a firewall and configure it. This is to protect your computer from hackers getting into your computer and stealing information. Most software firewalls are user friendly for the home user they allow you to set what programs are allowed through and what ones are not, and most will do it for you and only ask if you want to allow the program access to the internet or not. They also block the most ports that hackers use to gain access to your computer. Next you will make back ups of your important files and programs and set a schedule for backing them up as often as you feel is necessary. This is in case of something happening to your system, like hardware failure, a hacker getting in, or a virus being released on it. Think of a back up as being ...