If you’ve ever been unlucky enough to have contracted a computer virus in the past you’ll know all about the frustration and stress it can cause, especially in the workplace! Follow these 10 steps to keep your data safe and secure, and your computers clean and uninfected.
- Disable Autorun in Windows: this facility is consistently exploited by criminals that use USB storage devices such as flash memory sticks and even digital photo frames, to infect computers.
- Keep applications and Operating System (eg: Windows, MAC) components up-to-date with automatic updates and patches.
- Log on to the computer with an account that does not have Administrator privileges.
- Use different passwords for the computer and on-line services. Also practice changing passwords on a regular basis and avoid simple passwords, especially those that are easily guessed.
- Do not trust unsolicited files or embedded links, even from friends. Its easy to spoof email addresses, for instance, or to disguise a harmful link so that it looks like something quite different, whether its in email, chat or whatever.
- Do not disclose sensitive information on public websites like FaceBook or LinkedIn. Even information that in itself is innocuous can be combined with other harmless information and used in social engineering attacks.
- If sensitive information is stored on the hard drive, protect it with encryption and by regularly backing up your data to a separate disk and, where possible, a remote site or facility.
- Do not expect antivirus alone to protect the computer. Use additional measures such as a personal firewall, antispam and anti-phishing toolbars.
- Do not connect to just any free Wi-Fi access point. It might be the evil twin of a legitimate access point, set up to intercept your logins and online transactions.
- Be very careful if you are using P2P (peer-to-peer) software – downloaded files are frequently mislabelled.
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