Mr. Natural
April 14th, 2004, 05:10 pm
As a lot of people have recently discovered, it is extremely important to maintain and secure your PC and actively keep the computer updated on a regular basis. This article covers the basic steps needed to secure your computer from most threats.
The first thing that needs to be addressed is the Windows operating system (OS) itself. (Provided you're running MS Windows) Regardless if you are on dial up or have high-speed access, if you are on the Internet, it is extremely important to patch the operating system, especially when known vulnerabilities come to light, and fixes from Microsoft are released. With that in mind, the first place a person should visit is the Windows Update site:
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
You must be using Internet Explorer when visiting the site, or else it won't work. The first time you visit the site, you will be asked either once or twice if you want to run an ActiveX control program. Say yes both times. DO NOT place a check mark next to the “Always trust ActiveX control from Microsoft” option. This can actually lead to problems of another nature regarding future updates. You will then come to a screen which you can click “scan your computer”. After it is done, a list of updates will be shown. It is highly recommended that all of the critical updates listed are downloaded and installed. For those of you on a dial up modem this can be a daunting and huge chunk of time in your day if this is the first time you visited or have a new install of Windows. If that is the case, I suggest selecting only a few updates at a time by clicking the remove button and keep cracking away as you find the time, until after a few days or so you are up to date. If you visit the site on a regular basis (and keep up with things) you can avoid having a long list of downloads in the future.
One thing about the Windows update site I would like to add: I would be reluctant to run or install any driver updates listed on the site. While normally there should be no problem updating a driver from the Windows update site, I have heard of some folks having problems updating drivers from Windows update (most of them dealing with sound card driver updates). I’d also like to point out that once a driver for my old nVidia video card was listed as among the critical updates. I’m not sure why that is listed there because it should not be. There is also a section called “recommended updates”. These are updates which are not critical, but you can install should you decide to. It is a personal preference.
Next on the list of things is Anti Virus. Everyone needs to run AV on their computer. Also, anti virus is useless if you do not keep the program up-to-date by checking for updates every week! Some products now have a feature where they will automatically check for updates. There’s really no excuse, because there are very good free products available if you are unable to afford paying for a product. For most folks Anti Virus is a personal choice and preference. There are a number of good products out there. McAfee and Norton are probably the two most popular. My personal preference is NOD32 found at http://www.nod32.com. It's small, clean and compact. If you can’t afford to pay for antivirus, (In my opinion, if you can afford to buy a game once in a while, it is worth buying a good anti virus product) you can download and use a product call AVG antivirus. It’s free for personal use and I believe all you have to do is register the product in order to use it. Find it here:
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php
Next we need to address the fact that people are constantly trying to access your computer when you are on the Internet. A firewall is a must especially if you are on a cable, DSL, or a faster connection. With the release of the Blaster and Welchia worms, I now even recommend dial-up users use a firewall. Blaster can invade a computer within 10 seconds of connecting onto the Internet!
A hardware router/firewall is an ideal solution. It eliminates resources having to run on your PC. There are some great programs which will run on your PC, however, and do the job just as well. The most popular I would think is Zone Alarm. It’s free for personal use. Follow the easy to manage directions and you’ll have things running without any problems within a day or two.
Something new which I’ve added on my list of annoying things to keep off my computer are spyware programs. These are nasty little programs that get installed on your PC, monitor your activity, then report back to some location. Often they are ad-related programs, and you may notice an increase of spam (junk) mail coming in if you have spyware on your PC. There is a long list of spyware which I’m sure can be found by looking it up on the Internet. Gator is one I can mention off the top of my head. Music download programs such as Kazaa are well known to contain spyware programs.
Keep in mind a lot of free junk you download off the Internet may very well include spyware in the program. Free games come to mind. Not the large demos, but the cute little games people find fun for short breaks. There are a number of programs to monitor and remove spyware. I suggest using two mentioned below because they will find what the other misses. Using them both will do a very good job of keeping the stuff off your pc. After you download and install the program, be sure to run the update in the program so that the program has the latest updates to detect the latest known spyware.
Spybot search and destroy, and Adaware are two recommended spyware detection programs.
Spybot search and destroy, Adaware, and Zone Alarm are available for free download at:
http://download.com
The first thing that needs to be addressed is the Windows operating system (OS) itself. (Provided you're running MS Windows) Regardless if you are on dial up or have high-speed access, if you are on the Internet, it is extremely important to patch the operating system, especially when known vulnerabilities come to light, and fixes from Microsoft are released. With that in mind, the first place a person should visit is the Windows Update site:
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
You must be using Internet Explorer when visiting the site, or else it won't work. The first time you visit the site, you will be asked either once or twice if you want to run an ActiveX control program. Say yes both times. DO NOT place a check mark next to the “Always trust ActiveX control from Microsoft” option. This can actually lead to problems of another nature regarding future updates. You will then come to a screen which you can click “scan your computer”. After it is done, a list of updates will be shown. It is highly recommended that all of the critical updates listed are downloaded and installed. For those of you on a dial up modem this can be a daunting and huge chunk of time in your day if this is the first time you visited or have a new install of Windows. If that is the case, I suggest selecting only a few updates at a time by clicking the remove button and keep cracking away as you find the time, until after a few days or so you are up to date. If you visit the site on a regular basis (and keep up with things) you can avoid having a long list of downloads in the future.
One thing about the Windows update site I would like to add: I would be reluctant to run or install any driver updates listed on the site. While normally there should be no problem updating a driver from the Windows update site, I have heard of some folks having problems updating drivers from Windows update (most of them dealing with sound card driver updates). I’d also like to point out that once a driver for my old nVidia video card was listed as among the critical updates. I’m not sure why that is listed there because it should not be. There is also a section called “recommended updates”. These are updates which are not critical, but you can install should you decide to. It is a personal preference.
Next on the list of things is Anti Virus. Everyone needs to run AV on their computer. Also, anti virus is useless if you do not keep the program up-to-date by checking for updates every week! Some products now have a feature where they will automatically check for updates. There’s really no excuse, because there are very good free products available if you are unable to afford paying for a product. For most folks Anti Virus is a personal choice and preference. There are a number of good products out there. McAfee and Norton are probably the two most popular. My personal preference is NOD32 found at http://www.nod32.com. It's small, clean and compact. If you can’t afford to pay for antivirus, (In my opinion, if you can afford to buy a game once in a while, it is worth buying a good anti virus product) you can download and use a product call AVG antivirus. It’s free for personal use and I believe all you have to do is register the product in order to use it. Find it here:
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php
Next we need to address the fact that people are constantly trying to access your computer when you are on the Internet. A firewall is a must especially if you are on a cable, DSL, or a faster connection. With the release of the Blaster and Welchia worms, I now even recommend dial-up users use a firewall. Blaster can invade a computer within 10 seconds of connecting onto the Internet!
A hardware router/firewall is an ideal solution. It eliminates resources having to run on your PC. There are some great programs which will run on your PC, however, and do the job just as well. The most popular I would think is Zone Alarm. It’s free for personal use. Follow the easy to manage directions and you’ll have things running without any problems within a day or two.
Something new which I’ve added on my list of annoying things to keep off my computer are spyware programs. These are nasty little programs that get installed on your PC, monitor your activity, then report back to some location. Often they are ad-related programs, and you may notice an increase of spam (junk) mail coming in if you have spyware on your PC. There is a long list of spyware which I’m sure can be found by looking it up on the Internet. Gator is one I can mention off the top of my head. Music download programs such as Kazaa are well known to contain spyware programs.
Keep in mind a lot of free junk you download off the Internet may very well include spyware in the program. Free games come to mind. Not the large demos, but the cute little games people find fun for short breaks. There are a number of programs to monitor and remove spyware. I suggest using two mentioned below because they will find what the other misses. Using them both will do a very good job of keeping the stuff off your pc. After you download and install the program, be sure to run the update in the program so that the program has the latest updates to detect the latest known spyware.
Spybot search and destroy, and Adaware are two recommended spyware detection programs.
Spybot search and destroy, Adaware, and Zone Alarm are available for free download at:
http://download.com