Home

Internet Safety

Submitted by admin on Mon, 09/14/2009 - 08:35

Is the internet scary? Yeah, it can be. Are there threats out there that can cause serious problems? Yes, there are. Are you hopelessly at the mercy of these internet terrorist? Hell no.

As I see it, these threats fall under three umbrella topics:

  • Hackers - These being people that hack into your PC and just seize control of it.

  • Viruses - These being little rogue programs that can do anything from making a popup come on your screen every April 1st saying "ha ha" to destroying your operating system, and all things in between.

  • Spyware and malware - which are goofy little scripts, apps or services that install themselves on your hard drive from unethical advertisers on web sites or programs that contain them.

  • Predators - there are people online that are just scumbags looking to molest children. Protect your children with software activity monitors.

There are also three umbrella categories for ways to combat these threats:

  • Firewalls - Either hardware or software that monitors all traffic coming in to (and sometimes going out of) your PC or network. They can also stop unwanted traffic before it gets in or out of your PC or network.

  • Anti-Virus - Software applications that continually watch all activity on your system, downloaded files and email, for known viruses. They can scan your system at scheduled time, and quarantine or delete anything it finds.

  • Anti-SpyWare - Which is pretty much the same thing as a Anti-Virus, except it targets spyware instead of viruses.

  • Activity Monitors - Watch what you kids do online, where they go, who they talk to, what they say and what is said to them. Block activity that appears dangerous and be safe.

OK, hooray, how does this info help me, and how much does it cost to protect myself? Well, let's take a look:

Don't let the losers that do this stuff, or the media the mega-hypes these things, scare you into thinking you are in mortal danger. These threats exist, they are very real and they can be very damaging to your computer and your identity, but with some common sense practices, you can improve your defenses by 100%.

After getting these tools, the only thing left to do is make sure you keep their definitions up to date, which most apps do automatically.