Being savvy about safety on the internet is becoming increasingly important. If you fail to take precautions, you can find that a virus may shut your computer down or even pass your bank details on to people who will steal your money. Take this to the business level, and you will discover that the impact is catastrophic – a virus can bring the whole business down (don’t believe it?)
Read on for a basic debriefing on the subject of making your work computer safer from malicious attacks, malware and viruses.
Install anti-virus software
There are lots of anti-virus packages out there for you to select from. Really good anti-virus software will usually have a ‘free’ form that you can download from the internet. Click here for more information on reputable vendors.
You can choose to upgrade for a more sophisticated version of the security software, but if you don’t have a big budget, go for one of the market leaders. If you are unsure about which to choose ask a friend who has a techie side.
Install security patches
Every so often updates to security programs are released. You will usually find out about these through prompts on your computer. Lots of people ignore these prompts, but this is unwise. You should always ensure that valid security patches are installed on your computer. You can set your computer up to install these automatically, and you can choose to run them when you are away from your desk, so your computer is not slowed down or occupied when you need it most.
Pictures
You need to be very careful with pictures on the internet, particularly ones that show your face or ones that you want to keep private. You should be very careful who you share pictures with, as these could come back to haunt you in years to come! There are ways to set your social media to ensure that only your most trusted friends can see and download your pictures so make sure you know who can see your pictures at all times.
Personal data and information
You need to be very careful about who you share information like passwords with. Passwords can be used to access your personal data when you are not there so always make sure if others can use your computer, for example if you are at work and others can sit at your desk during lunch hour, set your system so that it does not automatically log into your emails when you are away from your desk. Equally, ensure that public computer you use to access your emails don’t remember your passwords automatically. In any event, it is always a good idea to change your password regularly.
Passwords
Additionally, you should always avoid using passwords like 1,2,3,4, or simple words that can be guessed as people can then easily guess your password and access personal data. Additionally, where a password is easy to guess, a hacking program will have your password cracked in 2 seconds flat. A password should have upper and lower case letters, and numbers. To be extra safe, add special characters to the password to ensure that only you can enter the correct password, and not someone pretending to be you.
