subject: Fighting the hidden foe – online safety for home PC users [print this page] Fighting the hidden foe online safety for home PC users
Most of us aren't in the industry, don't have a clue, and yet daily walk potentially perilous routes through the world wide web, as though they were streets we knew well. They aren't.
The first piece of online safety advice we can give is this. Enlist the services of a company like Computer Repair Ltd (a new and currently successful player in the online safety arena). Computer Repair Ltd, and companies like them, will undertake a simple analysis of your current internet security protocols (you might not even be aware that you have them, but you do: all machines have some kind of internet safety routines) after which, they will deliver a report telling you how safe you really are. They'll recommend ways to improve online safety, which can be as simple as clicking a few check boxes in your browser options window, or as intensive as buying and installing proper internet protection and firewall programs.
Not that we want to worry you unduly: but it's easier to catch a bullet with your teeth than it is to keep abreast of workable internet safety in this fast-moving age of technology. The internet security program you installed when you bought your computer is probably woefully out of date: alarming statistics revealed on a weekly basis by all sorts of industry bigwigs suggest that even the most carefully-protected PC is still subject to multiple web based "attacks" every day. These attacks range from simple breaches of internet security by programs that borrow your hard drive to fuel their processes, to full-scale virus intrusions that can eat your whole PC from the inside out.
So: how can you tell whether or not you're safe online? Basically, depressingly you can't. No-one, and nowhere, is safe. Some places, of course, are safer than others the best online safety tip anyone can give, is: only use reputable websites. Anyone downloading movies from illegal crack sites is going to be placing themselves over the wire and out in no man's land, when it comes to internet safety. If in doubt, don't use a site. Never pay for anything on the internet if it uses an unfamiliar payment gateway and don't, ever, give any details about yourself to emails that appear to come from banks. No bank, anywhere, requests personal information over the internet.
You can protect yourself from internet intrusion following basic rules like the ones above but even the most careful surfer is never immune. As we've said, internet safety is simply too far behind the ingenuity of the folk out there who want to use the web to do your computer harm. The only way you can be sure that your internet protection is the best it can be, is to get someone who works in the industry to evaluate your level of protection for you. Computer Repair Ltd is a good place to start they'll perform the consultation for free, only charging for any action they might need to take.
