Frann presents some very good measures for preventing online
attack. As of today, you will need one more tool in your arsenal: a
paid version of a spyware removal tool. For the first 6 to 8 months of 2004,
you could use the free spyware tools and remove very close to 100% of the
invasions. Not anymore. You need either spysweeper or spyware eliminator.
The best I've seen in the field is spyware eliminator. You can click on the
above Spy-ware Removal link and order a copy from Aluria. If you are in
spy-ware pain right now. Get spy-ware
eliminator today and get relief.
How to protect yourself from online attack
Author: Frann Leach
Article:
It's a jungle out there on the net, but by using these few simple tricks
and traps, anybody can protect themselves from the virtual beasts that lurk
there, waiting to attack the unwary.
Online security is not just for big corporations. It's true that they
stand to lose more, in terms of value, than you or I, but they have
sufficient reserves to be able to weather the storm, whereas the average
small business or man on the street is in a much more precarious position.
Using your credit or debit card online is no longer as dangerous as it
once was, but there are other ways in which use of your computer can be made
difficult, even impossible. Viruses are just the tip of the iceberg. There
are so many different ways in which your computer can be preyed on whilst
you are online, and even after you have disconnected. Apart from worms,
viruses, trojans, data miners, and keystroke loggers, there is spyware,
adware and who knows what else out there. All of them trying to take
advantage of you and/or your computer.
These products have many purposes. Very few of them are purely vindictive
or disruptive. For example, many viruses which install themselves onto a
computer do it no harm at all. Instead, they use the email program running
on the computer to send out spam, starting with everyone in the computer's
address book. And although everybody I know deletes spam immediately,
presumably there must be some sales, or this type of virus would be of no
value to the author.
It is important to be as secure as you can, because in extreme cases,
your very identity can be stolen, and used in ways that will disadvantage
you for a long time to come. And though this may be quite rare, there are
many viruses or trojans which disrupt the data you have on your computer, in
some cases causing so much damage that you have to reformat the disk and
start again - which is fine if you have kept backups (as we have all been
taught to do), but how many of us really do back our data up? We know we
should do this, but when was the last time you made a complete copy of all
your data?
This sort of attack tends to be at the amateur end of the scale. But if
you have children who surf the net, or you correspond with someone who has
kids who surf, you are at risk. The areas where they surf are some of the
most likely sources of this type of virus. But any of us can fall victim
just by a single moment of inattention when checking through our emails.
So how can you protect yourself from all these different threats?
Get yourself a firewall. Sysoft offer a free personal firewall that is
very good, and makes your computer invisible to many types of attack - the
best defence possible.
If you haven't got one already, install a virus-checker, such as AVG,
which is available for free download and set it to start up whenever you
turn on your computer.
Schedule a daily or weekly update for your virus checker at a time when
you are usually online, but not using the computer for anything requiring
100% of its resources.
Get a copy of Ad-Aware, available for free download, and run it once a
week.
Download and install a free copy of Spyware Blaster This will load up
when you start up your computer and sit in the background, preventing access
to your private data by thousands of different types of spyware. Do make
sure it is regularly updated, though, or you may fall foul of a new
attacker.
Run Spybot Search and Destroy once a week to check for anything missed by
your other lines of defence.
Even though you may have installed all these pieces of software, keep
them up to date and use them religiously, it is still vital to take care
with incoming emails. If you get an email which is very short and doesn't
'sound' like the person it is supposed to be from, with an attachment, DO
NOT open it. Delete it straight away. If there is any doubt, still
delete it, but you could email your friend and just check with them that
they didn't send you anything. It is far better to be safe, and cause a tiny
bit of inconvenience, than to end up trashing your hard disk.
When making a payment online, make sure the connection is secure. Secure
sites start with
Frann lives in Ramsgate, Kent, UK with her computer and her cat, Muffin.
She has her own referral marketing business and is always on the lookout to
recruit go-getters like herself. Find out more: http://www.this1works.biz
