Protecting Your Computer

Hackers generally prey upon those computer systems that fail to properly protect themselves. Those people who are deemed most at risk to loss their private information or to develop related computer problems are those people that consistently create easy to crack passwords or user names. To combat this problem one should create more complicated passwords that contain upper and lower case letters mixed with some numbers and if permitted a few symbols as well. In addition you should use a competent virus checker on your computer and run frequent checks for Trojans.

If your computer is permanently connected to the Internet you should be especial cautious. It would scare you greatly if you only knew how often your machine is experiencing computer attacks from various computer hackers. Computer attacks can occur at just about any time and any where and such attacks are very capable of destroying your computer. It is not unlikely that a virus can attack your machine and leave you with no files left what so ever.

Such an event can leave you with a horrible feeling of helplessness. You may feel as if someone has invaded your home and that is exactly what has occurred when this type of situation develops. Usually virus attacks are expensive and very time consuming.

Facts being what they are you can find that computer hackers are actually attacking your computer via the internet on the average of once every 40 seconds. The hackers will get into your computer and search around to see what you have on it that may be interesting. They can use your disc space to store their files on as well as to steal your personal information. Usually in order to get into a system a hacker will try a vast assortment of common usernames and plan text passwords. Frequently if you use weak passwords it would merely take a few minutes for them to break your code.

Avoid easily guessed usernames such as "test," “info,” "guest" and "admin," as well as those easily guessed passwords like “password,” "1234567," "boss" or "god." In place of the simple try some more complicated usernames and passwords consisting of random numbers and letters mixing both upper and lowercase. In order to protect yourself from computer viruses that could create backdoors or damage your computer follow these simple steps.

• Purchase a quality virus protection program and make certain to keep it updated.

• . Always avoid downloading any unsafe programs that you get from unreliable sources.

• Obtain only commercially produced software that you purchase on CD-ROMs.

• Ensure that you activate any Macro Virus Protection features found in all Microsoft applications.

• Never open any email attachment which contains an executable program. These programs usually have extensions such as exe. .vbs or .com.

• Lastly consider changing your operating system to one which is more secure like Linux.