There was a time before and a time after the internet. Now there is so much you can do just by sitting with a computer and an internet connection. You can do your work, you can do accounts, you can do your homework, you can chat with friends, you can send emails and be in touch with everybody, you can listen to music, you watch movies, you can voice and video chat with anybody in the world, you can do your shopping, do netbanking, pay bills – you can do almost anything.
The risk factors
Beware – while you can do all these and more, you are also more vulnerable to your computer being hacked, your identity hijacked, your data lost, your credit card and personal information compromised. Children and teens are at the mercy of predators as well.
You can lose money thanks to various internet scams, thanks to phishing and Trojans, your shopping and spending and internet usage can be tracked, all without your even being aware of it. Unscrupulous people can manage to transfer money from your bank accounts, do shopping with your credit cards, even morph your face and put you on porn sites.
With the internet, the rise of cyber criminals has made governments sit up and take notice. Most countries have special crime cells which deal with cyber criminals. It does not stop there. Even terrorist and criminals use the internet for their nefarious purposes.
How to make sure you are safe?
You should try and use genuine software as far as possible. A lot of software has built in safeguards. When you select your internet service provider make sure he uses secure lines – even for wi-fi connections – and encryption. Put a firewall in place and use spam guard to filter out unwanted email.
Use a total security internet suite and set all the controls as high as possible. Apart from the real time scanning, make sure you do deep scans manually every week in the very least. While there is no one anti-virus or internet security suite which can protect you fully, and you cannot use more than one on a computer without computer problems, what you can do is run and online scan every week with another package. This is usually free. Often you can disinfect your computer as well, otherwise print out the report and disinfect or delete infected files manually, after backing up your system.
Malware, anti rootkits and registry cleaners
Most anti-virus programs come with their own Malware, spyware and adware cleaners, but you usually have to start a scan or schedule it separately. Set your browser settings to clear cookies on exiting and also clear history files.
Often you can download them from the internet. However, be careful of scam registry cleaners which show you unwanted viruses and want you to spend money to buy them. Look for testimonials from genuine users on various boards before spending money on registry cleaners.
When you download
Be very careful when you download stuff from the internet. Free programs like torrent and similar file sharing programs often put your computer at risk of getting attacked. It is very tempting to download music, movies and television shows, and that also free, but do keep in mind that you may be risking your computer security.
Remember to keep backups of all your data on DVDs or pen drives or an external hard disk. And keep all your software programs safe as well. Because if your computer is facing lots of problems and runs slow, and your anti-virus can find no solution, then you can only format your disk drive/s to speed up your computer and remove all infections.