How To Make Your PC More Secure

Making your PC more secure should start with the basics and this article is going to teach you exactly what you need to do. Securing your PC is very important if you use email, do online banking, use PayPal, shop on eBay, and more. In conducting any of these activities, most often your PC is storing passwords, or, at the very least, you are typing them in each time you need to. A compromised computer will result in your identity and your passwords falling into the wrong hands, and rest assured, you don't want to be the victim of identity theft!

The first and most basic step is to use a firewall. If you aren't familiar with a firewall, perhaps a little history lesson will help.

Way back in early construction, the walls between houses were brick. This was done so that if one house caught fire, the fire didn't spread the the other houses; hence the name "firewall". For your computer, the idea is much the same, the Internet is the "neighborhood" and the neighborhood is full of viruses and other forms of malicious programs. As you don't want these on your computer, nor do you want your "neighbors" to have access to your computer, you need to have a firewall in place to keep them out.

Several different types of firewalls exist. Some are hardware-based, some are software-based, some are free, and some cost money. I would suggest the hardware-based types that cost money.

Next, you must install antivirus software, and you must keep it up to date. Without the second step, the first step is pointless. This is because the engineers at the antivirus companies are continuously looking for new threats and once they discover them, the put this information in a database. Each threat has its own signature that can be used to identify it, so the database end up holding a list of known signatures. Failure to keep this list of signatures up to date will result in your antivirus software not being able to protect you from the most recent threats. With current signatures, each email attachment is scanned as it comes in and it will be quarantined if it matches a known signature.

And finally, you must install anti-spyware software. Most people mistakenly assume that their firewall and antivirus software will protect them from spyware. This is not the case, however. Ad to that the fact that spyware is now the #1 threat to your PC and personal information, and having spyware protection in place becomes absolutely critical. According to recent studies, 90% of PCs contain some form of spyware. Spyware can take a variety of forms, however, some of the most common effects are that it causes unsolicited pop-ups to appear, steals personal information, monitors internet activity for marketing purposes, or routes your website requests to other spammy advertising sites.

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