Security Online

How Do These Risks Get On Your System?

Viruses, worms, Trojan horses, spyware, and adware can find its way onto your system in a variety of ways. Knowing what the risks are is only the beginning of understanding how to protect your computer – knowing how those risks get to your system is the second step to protecting yourself and your system.

Email Attachments:

This is a very common way that viruses find their way to your system. You receive an email with an attachment, and you open the attachment. The email may have even come from someone you know – or at least it may appear to come from someone you know. Once you open the attachment, you have a virus, worm, or Trojan horse.

Downloads:

This is another way that security risks find their way to your system. You unknowingly download them when you download other things. This happens quite a bit when downloading free software. It is important to know what company made the software, and it is important that you only download the software from a reputable site. Furthermore, this is how most adware and spyware gets on your system. Be sure to read the license agreements when installing!

Instant Messages:

This is another common way that viruses and such find their way to your system. When you exchange instant messages with another person, your computer is literally connected to their computer through a network. In most cases, it isn’t the messages that cause the viruses – it is accepting files through the messenger that causes a problem. Don’t accept files or pictures from anyone through instant messages. Even accepting files from people you know can be a problem, because you don’t know if their system has been compromised.

File Sharing:

There are many utilities and websites that allow file sharing. A person uploads a file, and other users of the account are able to download that file to their system. This is a common practice in the business world. But again, even if you know the person that uploaded the file in the first place, you don’t know if their system is secure or not.

Networks:

This works much the same way as instant messengers work, only no file transfers are required. Instead, the only thing required is for a network to exist. Businesses often have all of their computers that are in the same office on the same network. They can even have computers all over the world on the same network. If one of those computers gets a virus, the whole network could be at risk.

Visiting Malicious Websites:

There are many malicious people out there, and they have websites. When you visit these sites, a small download can start and be finished before you even know it happened, and you have a virus. These are usually JavaScript viruses, but are no less troublesome than any other type of virus. This can be controlled with the security settings on your web browser, which will be covered later.

Using easy passwords:

Passwords are easy to figure out if you get to know someone – unless they are smart enough not to use anything related to themselves, their families, or their lives. Unfortunately, that is exactly the type of information most people use for their passwords. If you are in a chat room, and you give your email address to someone, they can easily find out what ISP you are using. They have utilities that allow them to do this. Then, they can set up your email on their computer. After talking to you for a while, they will have lots of information to work on that password with – such as your kids names, initials, your spouses name, your birthday, your spouses or children’s birthdays, or combinations of any of these things. With that password figured out, and that email address, they may also surf on over to a payment site, such as paypal, and see if that is the email address and password you are using for that account – if it is, they then have access to your paypal account, your bank account, and your credit cards.

Lack of updated virus protection:

Simply sending a virus through email or an instant messenger isn’t enough to actually give someone the virus. They also need you to have inadequate virus protection – or even no virus protection at all. Many people are too dependant on their virus protection. Unfortunately, it usually isn’t enough. Virus protection must be kept up-to-date, and used in combination with a good firewall. You may even opt to have two different brands of virus protection running, just to be sure.

Lack of a good firewall:

A firewall is software that is designed to protect a computer from unauthorized access. These are commonly used in networks. The software filters all connections to the network to ensure that no computer that shouldn’t be connected is, and to ensure that viruses are not passed between the computers. Several years ago, it was very uncommon for home computer users to have firewalls; however, with the onslaught of viruses and other security risks, firewalls are now available – and widely used – on personal computers. Microsoft now includes a firewall with their operating system.

Failure to update the operating system, or other software:

Updating operating systems and other software can be tedious, but it is necessary to protect your system. For Windows systems, it can be simplified by allowing the operating system to update itself. Windows will check for available updates, on a regular basis, and download and install the update without you doing anything, however, sometimes, it will ask you to restart your system to install the updates. For other software, there is often an option under the help menu that says ‘check for updates.’ If there isn’t, you might consider visiting the company’s website to check for updates yourself. This should be done for any software that uses any type of Internet connection, such as email, instant messages, or online games. If your operating system or software isn’t up-to-date, you probably have security holes in the software that puts you at a greater risk.