Protect Your PC - How to avoid those computer nasties

My Piece for Ebb and Flow Magazine - A Community Magazine for Hastings.

In an ideal world surfing the internet and using your PC would be a problem free experience; login, surf the net, read your email and download, and that's that! Alas that is not the case. And what is more, one of problems with the internet is that many people do just that, but more of that later on...

The unfortunate fact is that the internet is not a safe environment, the virtual world is full of virtual nasties only too eager to burrow their way into your machine and cause all sorts of problems. Viruses, Trojans, Keyloggers, Browser Exploits, Rootkits and other assorted uglies all damage your PC or worse still allow it to broadcast spam email and even private information to outsiders!

OK so that's the bad news, the good news is that there are lots of things you can do to ensure that your machine stays safe and sound while online. There isn't room in this article to do more than touch on the various methods of protection, but if you follow the precautions mentioned here you will insulate yourself against the vast majority of the nasties out there.

For those of your with children the likelihood of a something unpleasant finding its way onto your machine is even greater, downloading MP3 music or films from Peer to Peer (P2P) networks, like Kazza and Napster and Bit Torrent sites greatly increases the chance of something unwanted coming along for the ride. Its also worth bearing in mind that many sites that offer downloaded music and video are doing so illegally and while its unlikely that the police will come knocking on your door, you may want to take the view you are taking the bread from the starving mouths of various international music artists and that that's a bad thing.

I am going to start by assuming that you are connected to Broadband rather than still using a dial up connection and if that is the case than your first line of defence is a broadband router (see image on right of this page). This handy little device not only enables you to share your internet connection with multiple machines, but many come with wireless capabilities as well. Some Internet Service Providers try to fob off their customers with USB broadband modems – these are generally unreliable; require you to install their custom software on your machine and because they need the power of your computer's motherboard to work take up resources you may need for other programmes of your PC. A router not only comes with its own firewall, but will usually have controls such a MAC addressing and encryption which enable you to specify which machines can be used on my network, both useful tools in the fight against PC nastiness.

Your next line of defence is a software firewall and anti virus programme. The firewall is a back up for the one on your router or is your first line of defence if you are using dial up or a USB modem. Once installed it will ask you what programmes you want to allow access to the internet. This is always useful since an unknown programme trying to access the net could be your first sign that your machine has been compromised. Added to those I would always recommend a spyware detector and some kind of application to scan your PC''s registry all of which need to be run and updated regularly. Note: beware of online virus scans, especially those which claim to scan your PC's entire hard drive in a couple of seconds and then claim you have several hundred infections which only the scanner's owner can cure.

In addition if you are using MS Windows you will need to make sure you get the regular updates to your operating system, these come out sometimes weekly. Users of Windows XP and Windows 2000 will not be surprised to learn that the operating system has more holes than an old string vest and updating is essential. Make sure you have either set your system to automatically update or visit the update at least one a month. Users of olders systems such as Windows 98, and Windows ME will find that Microsoft no longer support their Operating System I am afraid. Consider updating to a more modern version or even dumping Microsoft entirely, see below.

Assuming your system is up to date, it is entirely possible to protect yourself for little or no cost. There are many good anti virus programmes which can be downloaded for free, amongst them Avast, AVG and Clamwin, all of which will stop viruses on your machine. However a router will set you back about £50 and paid for AV solutions can cost between £20 and £100. If this seems expensive consider the cost of replacing even the cheapest of PC or the cost of a repair which could be as much as £60 an hour. In addition failure to protect your machine could mean you become one of the several million 'zombie' computers out there unknowingly spewing out spam and porn emails to millions. Your only clue could be your machine grinding slowly to a stop.

As I said early, Microsoft products are more vulnerable than most to exploitation, so you may want to consider downloading an alternative internet browser something like Firefox or Opera for your day to day browsing needs. Similarly Outlook and Outlook Express have some weaknesses and Thunderbird is considered by many to be a better email client. You can find both at http://www.mozilla.org/

For those who want a completely secure internet experience I would suggest having a look at the various Linux Operating Systems, these are fully featured computer operating systems and the vast majority are http://free. www.linux.org

The above only scratches the surface of the problem and the possible solutions, readers who would like more information about how to avoid viruses and some of the handy tools out there can email me info@wanderjahre.co.uk

Happy (and safe) browsing folks

Ron Cook

About the author: Ron Cook is a self taught computer 'non-expert' who builds PC for a hobby. He has no practical qualifications in computer science but ten years of interest and practical experience, which he considers to be much better. On those rare occasions when his head is not inside a PC he can be found either reading, writing or walking.