How to Make Your Computer Secure: The Importance of Knowing What's Going On

We have been discussing the importance of computer security in the past articles. We also had been discussing tips on how to protect your computer. All of these measures are technology related. There are however some non-technology measures that can be implemented in order to protect your computer. These measures may be regarded as merely common sense and yet only some people implement this with fervor:

Tip no. 8 - Never give out personal information online

In some hackers publications it has been said that one way to hack into a person's computer or network is to get the person to divulge personal information online. Personal information may be inadvertently given by an unsuspecting person not realizing that hackers can use this to open your emails or your network. Hackers accomplish this be chatting online with the person asking him seemingly innocent questions in the regular course of conversation. Questions like what is your favorite color, when your birthday is or what city you were born in may be used to compile information about you. Then when the hacker feels that he has known a lot about you already he will try to guess your email password or network or systems password using the given data. They may also try to "brute force" a system. They use a sophisticated program that tries any combination of words and passwords that may guess your systems or email password. Another way wherein hackers can accomplish this is through the use of emails. They may create stories like they need help or they have millions of dollars stashed somewhere and they need somebody to smuggle it out of the country. It's either they fleece you out of your money or they are after your personal information. The warning given to 7 years old should be followed even by adults when it comes to compute security, "Never talk to strangers." It may not be taken too far as that. A revision of the rule may be "Never give strangers any personal information online"

Tip no. 9 - Be aware of the internet activities of your children

Kids are more internet savvy than mom and dad. Most kids adapt easily to technology than parents do. It's probably because kids have grown up in a connected world already, whereas during their parent's time, the internet has not yet been invented and parents are too old to learn the technology already. If you still do not know much about the internet and you are not willing to do so, it is advisable that you do not give an internet connection to your children or if you do, put the computer in a visible place so that you can monitor the activities of your children. If you have already studied and known a little bit about the ins and outs of the internet, you can buy filtering software that can control how many hours in a day can a child spend on the internet, block objectionable site and chat rooms. Some filtering software even has key loggers. This means that you can review what your child has typed during his internet sessions. You can also learn what websites they have visited. The purpose for this one is not only so that you can prevent your children from viewing objectionable sites but also you can protect them from predators that lurk in the internet trying to victimize your child or solicit personal information from you through your child. There is several filtering software available in the market. Among the most popular are Content Protect, Cyber Sitter and Net Nanny. You can also subscribe to an internet service provider that provides filtering services.

Computer security is everybody's business. Since we live in a connected world, we should all make our responsibility to make our systems secure.