Article Advise

submitted: Aug 4th 2008 | by: SamJohnson | Total views: 1 | Word Count: 564 | |

When we think about how far we have come with Technology over the past ten years, it is just mind-blowing. Thirty years ago, personal computers did not even exist.

The Technology of today enables us to communicate with each other across the world and computers offer a means to connect to a plethora of multimedia resources. We have the whole world at our fingertips as global internet access supplies us with more information and resources than we could ever have imagined possible.

Although this is such an exciting time for computer users, and the internet has never been more popular, we also have to keep in mind the question of how to keep our data safe from hackers and guard our computer security, especially where privacy is concerned.

Hackers may have started off with an "us against the machine" type of mentality and acted as a form of protest, but this is no longer the case. Most hackers now only want to wreak havok on unsuspecting computer users. Their primary purpose is to steal or destroy data.

Financial gain from the theft of personal information is rampant now, and identity theft is becoming a more common form of cybercrime. Most hackers are content to delete or destroy the information on a computer or to take a computer over and turn it into one of their own hacking devices. Generally, these types of attacks occur without the user's knowledge.

What can we do then to protect ourselves from all these problems? The best protection against phishing, spam, viruses, trojans and spyware attacks are to have two software applications installed that are especially designed to fight off these intruders. One is a Firewall and the other is an AntiVirus program.

The Firewall is a piece of software designed to act just like the Firewall barrier in a car, which protects the car's passengers against fire in the engine. Firewalls can be complicated to set up, but they are essential. Once operating, they will safeguard the user from getting viruses through the internet because of this layer of protection.

Next important is the AntiVirus software. We have so many new viruses appearing daily, that there are AntiVirus software companies that, solely, check for new viruses, build into their software an antidote and then issue these updates to owners of their product. The AntiVirus software is designed to prevent any viruses from being executed on the computer, thereby, preventing disaster.

We can all do other things to stop ourselves from becoming the target of hackers, and the main way is by being aware and vigilant. We need to be careful about the emails we open and watch the kinds of websites we visit. Hackers are very clever people, who will prey on the fear we all have of losing our data, by offering their own brand of virus protection software, which contains viruses or is damaging.

The way a bank teller learns to differentiate counterfeit money from real money is by studying real money, so they can pick out a fake at forty paces. In the same way, We need to make sure we are informed about what the best practices are with our computer use, so we avoid making mistakes that could cost us our data. We need to learn and talk to people who are knowledgable about these things. If you do this, you will keep a step ahead of the hackers.

About the Author

About the author: Sam Johnson can help you to learn more about computer security. Get free tips and advice on all aspects of computer security visit our website at TimeSaverGuides.com.

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