Skip to content Skip to footer

Basic Computer Security

Huge corporations spend millions of dollars each year on trying to make sure their computers are safe. But if you own a personal computer at home, the truth is your computer is probably already alot more safe than those that they own. Many of their problems relate to glitches in their networking software and such. This does not mean that you are safe though.

Simple security measures can save a whole heap of heartache. Simple things such as if you are installing new software constantly make sure you run regular virus scans on your computer. This goes for if you use the internet or e-mail also. If using e-mail do not open any e-mails with attatchments from people you do not know or addresses you do not recognise. This could contain viruses or worse still worms that may corrupt files on your computer and also send itself to everyone in your e-mail address book, this will not make you a very popular person.

Simple things like screensavers with passwords are good to keep people from snooping around in your computer at work or at home or even better, put a password and user name on your computer from startup. This is a simple thing to do which you can achieve simply in your settings on your computer. If you leave your computer on and open for all to see it’s not surprising if somebody eventually decides to have a look.

If using the internet avoid downloading files if you do not know what they are. If your computer automatically downloads files you can change this in the properties selection in the menu. This can give you the choice to download files instead of your computer automatically doing it for you.

Following some of these simple steps could stop people from snooping through your files, your children or other people deleting or changing files, and also cuts down the risk of you gaining a whole lot of heartache over a worm or virus and losing information or maybe even your whole computer system.