The internet has its fair share of threats and dangers that could harm your PC and access your personal and confidential information without your permission. Computer security entails both detection and prevention from such people and programs. “Prevention” would help in keeping you safe from all such malicious attempts whereas “detection” would inform you whether someone attempted to access/harm your system, either successfully or unsuccessfully and what harm they may have caused.

Why bother about your computer’s security anyway? Well, nowadays computers are used for almost everything from shopping to banking and from having casual conversations through internet chat to investing. Yes, much of your information may not be that confidential but you still won’t want someone sending forged emails on your behalf or reading your personal or official documentation, like financial statements and bank account information. On a more serious note, an intruder or hacker/cracker may gain access to your computer to launch attacks on other computer systems. With access to your computer they are able to hide their true location while they launch attacks on high profile computer systems, like those of banks and other financial institutions.

Computer hackers / crackers are always looking for weaknesses or holes in the system. Developers are not always able to run comprehensive tests on their softwares because of its ever growing complexity. Later on when these holes are brought to the developer’s notice, they create patches to address the problem. So, the number one tip to all computer users is to make sure you obtain and install the patches and security fixes regularly. Some software like chat programs actually allow other users to execute commands on your system which could open the window to all kinds of harmful programs. Therefore there is a need to be more careful when using chat programs of various kinds. Read the rest of this entry »