One of my favorite subjects.....PC Security. More so, how misleading some advice can be. I read quite a few PC mags, Web sites, and  E-mails. We are bombarded about security. Protect your PC. Protect your privacy. Don't do this. Do that. Where does this leave the typical PC user?

Part of the problem is the obvious lack of standardization as it relates to hardware and software. There are MANY opinions about the feasibility of standards, and they are mostly legit. The issue is, without standard ways to do things, the possible combination of software and hardware goes beyond any possible comprehension.

Let's take my PC as an example... A Dell Optiplex with a 1.8 Ghz processor, 512 MB memory, 2-80GB hard drives, Windows 2000 Professional, Internet Explorer 6.1, Microsoft Office XP Professional, Mozilla, Norton Anti-virus, ZoneAlarm Firewall, etc., etc., etc.

Take that combination and ask the various vendors the best way to configure the hardware/software for protection from the nasty Internet world.

Besides the fact that these companies have no support and refuse to speak to end users (unless you feel like paying for the lousy support), whatever answers you manage to get are related strictly to their product, not the suite of hardware/software you have. Rule number one for Vendor Technical Support seems to be: Find someone else's hardware/software to blame and wash your hands of responsibility, get the caller off the phone and get back to your game you were playing when you got the call.

Now let's talk about the recommendations you read over and over again, and my opinions of such:

Backup your data.

Ideally, use a second hard drive of similar or larger size. Or perhaps you have Zip, Jazz, or tape? Do you rotate your backup media? What happens if the media fails? Do you keep a backup off site? What happens if you have a fire, tornado or some other catastrophic event?
And maybe you have a utility.
And maybe you know what to back up.
If you needed to, would you know how to restore?

 
Show of hands: How many of you know how to restore your hard drive if you cannot boot your PC?

Use anti-virus software and keep it up-to-date.

Some AV software works better than others. You can have multiple AV programs, although they may conflict with each other, utilize precious resources, and still not find all problems.
Again, show of hands: do you keep the virus signatures up to date? Some do. Some do not. Some do it infrequently. Some do not do it at all.
When you DO update your signature, do you re-scan your entire system? Ever consider the fact that you may have acquired some virus yesterday that your AV software did not know about until today's update?
Does your AV software check e-mail attachments? All attachments? Do you even OPEN attachments?

Speaking of E-mail and attachments...

Do you use HTML mail? A preview panel?
If you do, the little invisible images can implant software on your PC without you even knowing it.

Is Your Browser Set To Allow Cookies?

Why? Well, gee, if I go to this game site, they automatically plug in my username and password. Very nice. I hope you know better than to believe that cookies only do this! There ARE good cookies, and most of them are time savers. But most are either nothing special or downright miserable!
Is Javascript and/or Java enabled on your browser?
Do you randomly surf the Web? Would you ever know if a script or java program was executing or implanting garbage on your PC?
Yeah, eventually. When you need to reboot and strange things start to happen!

Do you have firewall?

Software and/or hardware? Is it configured properly? Did you change the default IP address on the hardware firewall (that everyone under the sun knows)? Even more important, did you change the default password???!!! Do you know how to configure the firewall in general? Do you know which Windows programs and services SHOULD access the Internet and which should not?

Do you fill out forms on the Web?

Even on "secure servers," and do you supply personal info?

Do you open or preview SPAM?

Ever answer SPAM? Even know how to recognize SPAM?

If a great friend of yours sends you an attachment, does that make it safe???


I've played with these toys since around 1980, and I still feel overwhelmed at times. Now it is not just the techies of the world that have PCs, everybody does. From all the questions I get, I am relatively certain, the majority of PCs out there are very unprotected.

I use Ad-aware and Spybot. Very few people bother with spyware software. They think anti-virus and maybe firewalls are enough. These programs are very good at not only finding spyware but cookies you may not know about, and even allow you to erase "usage tracks" that you also may be unaware of.

If someone does manage to hack your PC, they can see recent visited sites, recently utilized documents, and many other "logs" and registry entries that most users do not even know exist. The spyware programmers like to call the elimination of these usage tracks 'paranoia erasure.'

I did trial a shareware, Pest Patrol, and much to my surprise, the freeware programs were better!

Lastly, at least until I get my next head of steam... Do you do Windows updates regularly? If you do, do you just automatically apply every patch, fix, and upgrade, or do you read the gobblygook and try to KNOW if you need this fix/patch/upgrade? If one of these breaks your PC, do you know how to fix it? Read question one.