Tips for Computer Safety

You may have already read up on antivirus software and other malicious programs.  Here are some additional tips on keeping out of harms way with your computer.

Ten Tips for Computer Safety

1. Don't assume anything. Make some time to learn about securing your system.

2. Acquire and use a reliable antivirus program. Select an antivirus that has a consistent track record.

3. Acquire and use a reliable firewall solution.

4. Do not open e-mails coming from unknown or distrusted sources. Many viruses are spread through e-mail messages & enclosures. Ask for a confirmation from the sender if you are in any doubt as to the integrity of the e-mail in question.

5. Do not open the attachments of e-mail messages with a suspicious or unexpected subject. If you want to open them, first save them to your hard disk and scan them with an updated antivirus program.

6. Delete any chain e-mails or unwanted messages. Do not forward them or reply to the senders. This kind of message is considered spam, because it is undesired and unsolicited and it overloads Internet traffic.

7. Avoid installing services and applications which are not needed in day-by-day operations in a desktop role, such as peer to peer file transfer and file sharing servers, remote desktop servers and the like. Such programs are potential hazards, and should not be installed if not absolutely necessary.  Certainly do not leave them running unattended.

8. Update your system and applications as often as possible. Some operating systems and applications can be set to update automatically. Make full use of this capability. Failure to patch your system often enough may leave it vulnerable to threats for which fixes already exist.

9. Do not copy or download any file if you don't know or don't trust its source. Check the source of files you download and make sure that an antivirus program has already verified the files on the server from which you are downloading.

10. Make backups of important personal files (correspondence, documents, photos and such) on a regular basis. Store these copies on removable media such as CD or DVD or an external hard disk. Keep your archived media in a different location from that of your computer. Indeed, if you are running a home business, you should even have a completely different off-site storage arranged with rotating media.  It could be the difference between losing a months work or ALL your work.

Also, check out A few thoughts on Backups
 

We wish you happy and safe computing!  Be careful out there!

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