Changing behaviors to avoid the most common infections is more effective than anything else when it comes to your computer. The best antivirus software ever made can't stop us from doing something less than smart. What follows is a top ten list of safety tips for keeping your computer safe.
Never, ever open an attachment from an unrecognizable address – even be careful of those from folks you think you know.- Make sure to update your PC when updates are available.
- Use a firewall. Hardware, software, or both. Not doing this is like leaving your front door open…at some point someone will open the door, and you will suffer the consequences.
- Be highly suspicious of any email asking for your password, especially your bank or even ISOCNET. These emails are almost always phishing scams.
- Love your social networking sites? So do we, but we are very careful with the apps, as you should be! Sometimes they gather information you may not want them to have.
- Run regular virus and malware scans on your PC, period! If you don’t run a scan at least weekly, you are taking chances.
- Do not open a file that is named something like newvirus.jpg.exe. If you hide your file extensions (i.e. .jpg) on your PC, what may look like a picture to you could really be masking a predator.
- If you’re suddenly staring at a window that says, “Warning, your computer has been infected…click here…” it may not actually be infected yet, but it certainly will be if you click on it! Press Alt + F4 to close the window (same as X’ing out).
- Sure, it’s not fun to enter in a strong password (letters, numbers, symbols, at least one capital letter, etc.) but it can be fun to make one up. Try picking a phrase first, like ‘life is a picnic’ and converting it to a password:
L!f!s@PCnc. Also make sure every user on your PC has a password, especially the administrator account.
- Crazy about your WiFi access? We are too….but we don’t let our neighbors share it. Follow your manuals direction to lock-down your wireless connection. You’re not being stingy, you’re being safe!