By Ross Deprey
Today, computer security is more important then ever. In today's world you need to dot your I's and cross your T's in order to stay safe. One of the ways crooks can hack you is through your e-mail. Time and time again we get calls from our clients telling us that all their friends are getting e-mail messages that appear to be malicious sent from their e-mail address. In almost every case, someone has used a "robot" to guess their password and once the password is breached, the crooks can have their way with your account. In some cases, they might even lock you out and change the password to your own account. If you did not set up an alternate contact e-mail or cell phone number on your account you could be out of luck.
In most cases, the reason your account was breached was because you used a weak password. This is the most likely scenario. In some cases, a virus can be deposited on your computer that automatically starts to send the e-mails out to all the people in your address book. This case is much less likely today. In the past, this was a frequent scenario. In other cases, especially if you work in an office environment with lots of people around, someone might of guessed your computer password and accessed your account right through your own computer. Again, this is not as likely as someone guessing your password but it is still possible.
There are also cases where your e-mail gets spoofed to look like the spam messages are coming from you. In this case, there is little that can be done to stop the spam. In many cases, the links or attachments that are in these e-mails can contain dangerous virus infections that can steal personal information from the infected computers. Try to notify your friends as soon as possible to avoid this heartache among your friends. Remember, preventions is the best medicine so make sure all your passwords are extremely hard to crack.
Another important area for security is your firewall. A lot of people believe that anti-virus software can prevent their computer from being hacked. In reality, that is just not true. Anti-virus software will stop a virus and that is all. It is true that stopping a virus can prevent a hacker but in some cases you need more protection. A firewall can prevent an unwanted visitor from entering your computer. The truth is that if you own a router, you already have the best firewall you can get. In a case such as this, you do not need a separate software firewall running. If you do not use a router, you should purchase a good software firewall for protection. If you travel and use a lot of public WiFi systems, you also should have a software firewall. The only issue is that sometimes the firewall can generate a false positive and block you from doing something that is safe and create an issue for you. If the firewall malfunctions in some way, it can block you from doing almost everything on your computer. We see this happen quite frequently with Norton.
With the threat of CryptoLocker, a tool called CryptoPrevent was developed to help stop the threat from entering your computer. The problem with this tool is that it can also prevent you from doing some normal operations with your computer because it blocks the app data folder in your account. This is the folder that CryptoLocker uses when it enters your computer. I am not a real fan of this tool since it can have bad effects on other programs running on your system. Since most of the infections are coming from infected e-mails, being careful with opening new mail is the best prevention. If you are careful, you can go a lifetime without ever getting a virus on your computer.
As you can see, there are lots of ways you can both prevent an intrusion and lots of ways you can allow an intrusion through carelessness. If you faithfully follow the advice from this article and others like it, you can have a lifetime of happy and safe computing with no unexpected surprises.
Ross Deprey from http://www.ComputerGeeksOnline.net/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ross_Deprey
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق