It wasn't long ago when the only way you could get a virus was if someone gave you a copy of a program or application on a floppy disk and that is what was infected. And because of the slow spread of physically handing disks around and the fact that most people who used computers were adept in how to use them, viruses were quite easily quarantined and eradicated. People knew about the viruses that were out there and made sure that they scanned each disk before they opened any files or activated any programs.
Now-a-days though, it seems that very few people in comparison have this knowledge and most are very impatient. They just want to put the disk in the computer and run it without doing any security checks. Even when they download things off the internet, they should by rights do a scan for viruses, trojans or any other nasties BEFORE starting up or opening the download. Even if it is just a picture!
Viruses now can infiltrate your computer as easily as just visiting a website and can be passed through the entire internet via the addresses in your address book without you even knowing about it!
As technology advances, the challenges of internet security increase. New types of viruses can now pass from computers to mobile devices, making this an ever increasing threat. Also with more and more people using their computers for online shopping and online banking, there is an even greater threat of personal information being compromised.
Protecting Your Computer
Lucky for us, Antivirus software has kept pace with the virus threats being released daily. Antivirus software has become an essential component to the challenges of internet security and your piece of mind. A good antivirus software package is designed to protect you against viruses that can access your computer through email, web browsers, file servers and copied disks. Also, these new antivirus are updatable and are centralized to aid in configuration and manual or automatic scanning any time you want or need.
A computer user should remain diligent and follow a few simple steps to protect against the threat of a virus:
1. Evaluate your current computer security system.
Because of the way that new viruses have been programmed to attack your computer, it has become necessary that we fight back with more than just one way of protection. Our antivirus must have more than one way of stopping these viruses from slipping past our defenses. Your antivirus should have some or all of the following:
- antivirus,
- firewall,
- content filtering,
- and intrusion detection
2. Only install antivirus software created by a well-known company.
Due to the fact that there are constantly new viruses being released to raise havoc on the internet, you want to make sure that you have an antivirus from a company that has been around for a while. You need to have the ability for your antivirus to update regularly and if you get one from a new company or a company that is not that well known, then you risk that when you need to get that update, they might not be there!
3. Make it a habit to always scan all new programs or files no matter from where they come from.
4. When opening Word, Excel or binary documents from unknown sources, be careful! Scan them before opening!
5. Perform regular backups in case your system is corrupted. It may be the only way to recover your data if infected.
Following these 5 simple steps are a start to making your computer a safer place for your information.
Your computer is not a safe place to keep your valuable information unless you find out more at Antivirus Software Review. Don't wait until it is too late!
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