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A First Line of Defense for Computer Security

Everyone is familiar with the need to protect their computer from the unsavory actions of others on the Internet. This issue is particularly important if your computer is always online. Viruses, spyware and adware, and people trying to gain any form of unauthorized access to your system are the first line of concern when protecting your system. Your first line of defense should include antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-adware and firewall software.

The nice thing about antivirus software is that you can leave it alone to do its job. When it needs you, it will let you know. You can follow these guidelines: 1) Let your anti-virus run constantly in the background. 2) Configure it to auto-update and scan your computer at least once a week. 3) Scan anything you’ve downloaded from the Internet before running it. To make this easy on myself I created a “downloads” folder on my hard drive into which everything I download is saved. Before opening the file, I update my virus definitions and scan the file for viruses. If it passes, I then I’m safe to execute the file. 4) Allow it to scan your incoming email. This will stop any viruses being passed via email.

Spyware and Adware are next. I’ve never found any product able to catch 100% of spyware and adware. However, I have found that running at least 2 different programs will usually catch them all, but may leave behind one or two. Running three programs, I’ve never seen any spyware/adware left behind.

To prevent other unauthorized access to your system you need to “lock down” your system. Firewalls ease the process of locking down your system and managing the security settings. Firewalls do require a lot of user interaction initially. Any firewall will have to be taught what is and is not acceptable behavior for the applications on your system. This dependency on you to understand what’s going on may be intimidating at first. You will have to tell the system which programs to allow access to the Internet and which to block. Most firewalls have a good ability to automatically make the right determination for you. When in doubt, let the firewall make the decision or ask a knowledgeable computer person. Once fully trained the firewall sits quietly in the background doing its job.

As for the tools themselves, I use ZoneLabs’ ZoneAlarm Security Suite for anti-virus, anti-spyware and the firewall. It’s about $60. For adware protection I use Lavasoft’s Ad-aware Personal SE. For spyware I use Microsoft Windows Defender, Spybot Search and Destroy and Spyware Blaster. Other than ZoneAlarm, these are free downloads.

All these tools should be updated at least once a week. The antivirus and firewall should run constantly in the background. You should configure your antivirus and spyware/adware tools to each run a full system scan weekly. Most of these programs have auto-update features you can enable and they will set themselves to run automatically when you turn on your computer. You’ll find many vendors will bundle these tools into one application (such as ZoneAlarm Security Suite). I recommend this approach, because it provides you one location to manage your system security. When choosing your security software, go with reputable companies. The products I’ve listed are all well-known, highly trusted products. Other companies with high quality products are Symantec, McAfee and Grisoft.

Links to companies and products referenced in this article:

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