Why?

There are several good reasons to protect your computer. More precisely, I will elaborate on viruses, spyware and hackers (and phishing), which are three important things for which all computers (especially those running Microsoft Windows*) should be protected. Moreover, the methods proposed here are free, generally simple to use and can prevent you from losing important data (photos, documents, etc..), protect your identity and protect your computer from being used to generate attacks.

How viruses work?

Generally speaking, a virus is a software that has the ability to copy itself from one computer to another (LAN, internet, disks, USB keys, emails, etc…). This can eventually just clog the disk space on your computer, delete important system files or delete your personal files.

How spyware works?

Interrogation

Spyware does not copy itself as a virus. It must be installed in the computer. Installation can be done with or (more often) without the user’s knowledge. It may come as a toolbar on the browser, as a script or cookie on a website and others. The software used to identify your browsing habits on the Internet, what you type at any time (including your password, credit card number, etc…) Yes, yes, even on secure sites!

How do hackers do?

We will discuss here of the commonly used attacks done by hackers and how to prevent them. The most common attacks are Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) and phishing. A DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) is done by taking control of hundreds, see thousands of unprotected computers remotely and use them to send attacks on a particular site.  This has the effect to stop the site from operating properly or at all. Phishing meanwhile, is the art to make you believe that you are on your bank’s website or any other site on which you are used to go and whom you trust, and capture critical information that you enter there (passwords, credit card number and PIN, etc…).  Phishing is mostly done through email.

Antivirus protection

AVG

There are paid anti-virus software but I am believing that someone must pay (as an individual) for this.  Anti-virus companies can possibly be creating viruses to later tell us to use their anti-virus to protect ourselves. Therefore I will suggest a free software among many others, that works in many languages: AVG. This free software (with an inexpensive lisence for companies) contains all the features necessary to protect your computer against viruses, emails containing viruses, spyware and some links to dangerous sites on the Internet.

Where to get AVG Free?

Simply download the free version of AVG on http://free.avg.com/. Then, install the software on your computer and make sure the software is to update automatically and regularly (at least 1 time per day). You are now protected against a variety of viruses and spyware.

Increased protection against spyware

Spybot

To avoid having several programs that check for spyware and forget to do regular scans on your computer, I personally selected “Spybot” which is also available in several other languages. You can download this software from the manufacturer’s site at http://www.safer-networking.org/. When installing the software, I recommend not to activate the “TeaTimer” protection. Despite that it can protect against some spyware, it can be very tedious to use. Once installation is complete, be sure to use the “Immunize” tool that will prevent much of the spyware from

being installed on your computer without even having to do any scans on your hard drive. Updates and “Immunization” should be done regularly (at least once a month) as well as complete scans.

Firewalls

Most operating systems come with a firewall.  Firewalls and routers protect you from people who want to penetrate your computer from the Internet. Thus, if a new virus (not detected yet by anti-virus) or script of a hacker is installed on your computer (physically or by using a security issue on your computer) without your knowledge, what comes out of your computer will not be verified since routers and most default firewalls only verify what is coming in your computer not what goes out. You could then be accused of attacking another person or company without even being aware of it.

To overcome this problem, you can install a software firewall that will filter the incoming and outgoing traffic on your computer and if an unknown program wants to send data over the network or internet, your firewall will warn you about it before it does. This way, you can approve all known software (once approved, this software is remembered by the firewall and you are not asked again) and refuse any unknown software. This technique is not recommended for novice users because it requires a little more understanding of the “good” and “potentially bad” software on the computer.

Forms

A brief comment to advise you strongly to deactivate the “autofill form fields” both in your operating system and in your internet browser since this allows anyone accessing your computer to access this data and use it, especially if you’re not the only person who has access to that computer (family, friends, children, coworkers, etc…).

Conclusion

There are a lot of risks on the internet but with a good and updated anti-virus, a good and updated anti-spyware and a good firewall, it is possible to prevent more than 99% of the security risks of computing over a network of the internet. Using these techniques, the last virus that I personally had was in 1997 (over 12 years ago), including both office and home computers.

Legend

* Why are computers running Microsoft Windows more at risk than MacOS or Linux or else? Simply because they are more than 90% of customers on the market so hackers are focusing on them… This would probably be the same if MacOS or Linux had 90% of the market share.