Simple items to make your  Home PC/Network safe.

 

1. If you have Children, please download and use BlueCoat K9 service OR OpenDNS Family Shield. It is a free Internet filtering service that will keep you, your Children and your guests from; spiked websites and all other bad things there are out there for kids. It is a wonderful free service from Bluecoat and openDNS.

2. Create a user account with NO administrator privileges on your computer and use it for normal work ( XP only). This will save you 90% of the time when it comes to malware infestations. If you need to install or change something you can log in with an admin account makes changes and then log back in as user. If you are using Windows Vista/7 you can do a “run as” to make most changes and do not turn off UAC controls.

3. Use a complex password for your user account.  This means; uppercase and lower case letters, spaces, numbers, or symbols or all and be a minimum of 8 character sets, best would be 15.

4. Never, ever use “remember my password” for anything let alone online accounts or banking. If someone  hacks your machine, its stolen or you loose it, they can access your accounts!

5. Purchase 2 encrypted USB flash drives or create two with Windows 7 bit locker to go, then create a excel document of all your links, usernames and passwords and then keep one in safe place and carry the other.

6. Keep your Microsoft security updates, up-to-date. Keep Java up-to-date with patches.

7. Do not use adobe reader! Use fox-it with its lock down of .PDF files you can read in safe mode, so that if document is spiked or loaded  that you download or view from internet you can read it safely.

8. Do not transfer music between friends. Do not plug someone else’s USB flash or HDD drive into your machine without scanning it first. This is the second biggest means of infestations on workstations.

9. Install a good antivirus/malware Protection program and keep it up to date. Also make sure that you allow it to do a full scan your computer at least once a week. If you cannot afford to purchase it , then install a free version; Microsoft, Avast and AVG are all very good for free, AVG is the best of the three because of its Internet safety checker.

10. If you use a wireless router make sure that you change the password of the router, set up security using WPA Personal and MAC filtering. These three items can help in securing your wireless.

11. Backup your information! There as so many options out there. The most important item to back up is your user profile. The next item would be the complete computer’s hard drive. For non-technical people the best kind of backup software is one that backs up data in its natural format.

12. Be careful where you travel on the internet. Just because you received a link from a friend that claims to be the best video you ever seen, think twice. Is it worth losing all your identity, credit and data?

13. Free wireless connections are not always free, professional hackers sit in wait for people using free wireless networks so they can trap your transmissions. Always use a https:// connection when on a “free unknown” network.