Tech - How to protect your computer

In the past few years, our computers at home have become more and more involved in our daily lives, be it for paying the bills or keeping touch with friends. This articles explores a few basic steps to protect your computer.

Here are a set of one time and ongoing steps to help protect your computer. If you have any other ideas, please send them to me and I will add them to the list below.

One time setup
1. Ensure that you have a password for your computer login and do not set the option "to login automatically".

2. Use an anti-virus tool. There are plenty of free ones available like - AVG, Microsoft Essentials and Clam Anti Virus. I would recommend Microsoft Essentials. It's quite simple to use.

3. Ensure that you set medium or high priority security options in your browser.

4. Disable pop-ups. It saves nuisance in a lot of sites.

5. If you are using Windows, enable the Windows Firewall or use 3rd party firewall. For most purposes, the Windows Firewall is adequate for the job.

6. Set a password for your WiFi, if you are using one at home. There have been plenty of cases of criminals hacking into a neighbours open Wifi.

7. Set up obscure passwords which are a combination of alphabets, numbers and other characters (like !,@,#,$,% etc).

Ongoing vigil
1. Never open emails from suspecting senders. It's still one of the most common ways of hacking into your computer.

2. Backup your important data regularly into a external hard disk or flash drive.

3. On the firewall, do not allow incoming connections except for known applications like a chat client etc.

4. On the social and professional networking sites, do not accept invitations from unknown people.

5. Keep changing your passwords from time to time!
Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

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