How much security does your computer system have? Many computers are not protected from basic attacks on the system. And the information out there on the Internet and Blogs about how to protect your PC are usually about the latest, greatest whiz-bang thing and not the basic protection needs every computer system should have. My systems are pretty bullet-proof, because they have to be, yet use basic protection.
This series, then, is to share with you what security I have set up on my personal computers and what regular maintenance I do on them to keep them humming.
This post focuses on Spyware, a relatively new, but very dangerous type of attack.
Spyware, in my opinion, is the most dangerous type of attack on a personal computer. Spyware attempts to download software on your system and, once installed, can do a tremendous amount of damage to your system. This includes forcing ads to pop up on your screen, taking over your home page on your PC, and even looking for and sending your passwords to other servers so that they can be used for fraud.
The problem with Spyware is that one program will not necessarily be enough to prevent spyware from coming into your system. For example, I subscribed to a program with continual updates and the ran a complete scan of my system where the program found none. I then ran a second program and that scan found twelve(!) spyware programs on my hard drive.
My suggestion is to download a free spyware program (and my recommendation is Ad-Aware SE) and scan your system once a week with it to capture spyware. As well, I would recommend paying for a program that has a subscription service. The one I use and recommend (after my little experiment above) is Spyware Detector from Max PC Software.
Spyware Detector runs in your tool bar and will prevent most spyware from coming into your system. Because it is subscription based, the Live Update feature will download additional definitions of Spyware.
Here are the critical steps that must be done to prevent infection from Spyware:
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Block Spyware. This feature is in Spyware Detector where the program is watching for spyware to enter into your system and stop it.
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Live Update. Your software definitions, just like with virus protection, needs to be updated regularly. If you can schedule these through the software automatically, do so, otherwise, regularly update your program
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Weekly scan. The weekly scan is critical and most of the software programs will allow you to schedule the update. As I’ve noted before in this series, I leave my PC’s on during the weekend and schedule all these recurring activities in the dead of night while I’m sleeping.
Outside of the stealing of your PC, which is bad enough, spyware slows your system down dramatically. All in all, an insidious attack. Using a Spyware program and diligently scanning your system with a couple different programs will keep your system spyware-free and your system running as fast as it can.
Scot
[tags]PC, spyware, technology-for-writers, ten-keyboards[/tags]
