Five Ways to Protect Your Home Office Computer

In today’s world of a personal computer in every home, and in some cases for every person in the home, it is no wonder that the home PC has become a target for criminal entities. Luckily, there are a few simple things that can be done to protect your computers, especially your home office computer, from becoming a statistic of online fraud.

Keep Your Operating System Current

First and foremost, keep your Microsoft Windows or Apple operating system at the latest revision. If you have a PC that is still running Windows 98 or Windows Millennium, you have added considerable risk that the workstation will be come compromised. Both Microsoft and Apple offer less expensive upgrade options for owners who wish to become current.
Microsoft Windows users can go here to learn more about their upgrade options.

Keep Your Firewall Turned On

A firewall is a technology security device which is configured to basically permit or deny conversations to networked computers. Firewalls can be either hardware or software based. Beginning with a release of a service pack for Windows 2000 in November 2003, Microsoft has continued to release a fully functional firewall built into Windows. Apple Macintosh users have had built-in firewalls since Mac OS 8.1. Teach your computer to not talk to strangers and be sure to keep your firewall enabled

Keep Those Patches Coming

The most important thing that can be done to prevent your computer from becoming compromised is to install software patches. The criminal community has been using vulnerabilities not only in operating systems such as Windows, but also in applications such as Acrobat Reader, QuickTime Movie Player, AOL Instant Messenger, and the like. Microsoft offers an “automatic update” patching option for users of Windows XP and Vista built right into the system. Windows XP users can Right-Click on the “My Computer” icon to view the “Automatic Updates” tab to configure automation of updates. Software such as QuickTime, Flash and Adobe Reader should be periodically checked to see if you are using the latest and greatest versions. Most applications will have an option to check for the latest version under the Help menu. Install the available updates and you will go a long way in keeping unwanted users and viruses out of your computer.

Use Anti-Virus Software and Anti-Spyware Software

Antivirus software has been around since the late 1980s and is a security must for any computer.  Antivirus software is a final defense against malicious software trying to run on your computer. Antivirus software will continually analyze executing applications and files on your hard drive to see if it can recognize a pattern that matches that of a virus.  When a pattern is matched, the antivirus software will stop the loading application and notify the user and/or perform some remediation action.
 
It is very important to keep an updated version of antivirus software.  Since antivirus software requires information on how to pattern match new viruses that are created, typically a software maintenance contract is needed between the owner of the computer and the antivirus company.  This subscription will expire after a predetermined time. Symantec, McAfee, Sophos, and F-Secure are the big antivirus companies out there and each requires a yearly subscription to keep the virus definitions up-to-date.

There are free antivirus software titles available, but they are not quite as polished and professional as their commercial counterparts

Set clear Rules for Web Surfing, IM and Email Use

Many home computer users can make the mistake of providing personal information to criminal organizations without realizing they have done so. Social engineering is a term for a malicious party tricking you into providing personal information under the assumption that they are a different entity than they actually are. Many criminals masquerade as banks, Pay Pal, EBay, Amazon or known companies hoping that you will respond to a specially crafted email or website that asks for you to fill out forms providing information such as log-on credentials or credit card data.

Phishing can be defined as a type of attack that tricks you into believing that you are providing information to a legitimate business but in reality you are sending your information to a criminal organization.

There are several things you can do to evade these attacks.

• Pay attention to the website you are visiting. www.bancofamerica.com is not a legitimate Bank of America website. The website will look identical to the real thing and when you attempt to logon to check your account balances, the criminal party will record your information. The criminals will then logon to the correct website and empty your account.
• Be suspicious of email asking you to click on a link to take you to review your account information. Open Internet Explorer and go to the destination yourself. There are ways for criminals to falsify links in email to appear to take you to legitimate locations but are doing the opposite.
• Pay attention to the “lock” icon at the bottom right of the Internet Explorer window. This icon should be showing each time you are submitting personal information, including passwords. The “lock” icon (which indicates encryption) can be used by criminals also. If you are suspicious of a website’s authenticity you can double-click on the “lock” to see who the encryption license was granted to. If the certificate on a Pay Pal registration site is listed to hack4u Inc it would not be a good idea to submit your information.
• Do not trust links received from instant messaging communications. These can be falsely crafted also.
• Do not launch games or applications that were sent to you via email or instant messaging. There is a very high probability that the game or piece of software will have hidden malicious content. In most cases the sender will not know the software is malicious.

In Conclusion

Personal computing in the home has been a part of our lives for decades and continues to grow, much like the television in the 1950s and 60s. Homes with multiple computers are very common, and the criminal element knows this and will try to use this to their advantage.