If you are a person that worries about the set up of their computer, then one of the first things that you do is to make sure that everything is secure. As we all know, in the age of the internet, security is the most important things that we can think about when it comes to our computer. Earlier in the lives of home computers, there was no internet as we know it now. The main thing that we had to worry about was someone physically accessing our system. Now that is not the case. We have to make sure that we have the right software tools that will allow us to keep our computer safe when we travel down that road known as the World Wide Web. There are two key pieces of software that will help you do this. These software tools are known as a firewall and antivirus. If you are a computer beginner, you may have heard of these solutions but you might not quite know what they are. In this article we will walk you through what they do, and how you can use them to keep your computer safe.

When we talk about firewalls, we are talking about a program that guards the entrances of your computer. These entrances are known as ports and they allow you to have a connection with the outside world. Every day, the bad guys are looking for new ways to be able to get into your computer by using these ports. To prevent that from happening, you use this software to hold them off at the pass. If you set the software up right, then the bad guys will have a very hard time getting into your system. The only drawback to this type of software is that you are going to have to open up some of the ports of your computer. You have certain programs that need to be able to access the internet so you need to allow them a way through. This is known as port forwarding. Other than allowing port forwarding, all of the rest of your ports should be safe from intruders.

The most important piece of software that you should have on your computer is the one that we are about to talk about next. It is known as the antivirus and it is what keeps your computer safe from being infected. If you have watched the news at all, you will no doubt have heard about black hat hackers trying to infect your computer. They do this by putting little rogue programs on your computer known as viruses. These viruses can cause your computer to do a number of things that you do not want it to do. So to prevent that from happening, you can run a program called an antivirus that will detect them as soon as they are on your computer. This way you can stop them in their tracks before they do any harm. Antivirus is key to having a well secured computer system.

As you see, having your computer well secured is very important. If you have two of the software programs that we just discussed then you are on the right path.

With the rise of wireless network everywhere, there is becoming a need to be able to transfer your files in a safe and secured manner. A lot of people falsely assume that you are as safe on a remote network, as you are on your home version. This simply is not true. There are a lot of attacks that can affect you when you are on a strange network, especially a network that you have not been on before. One of the attacks that are popular on a public network is called a man in the middle attack. Or you can have someone sniff out your data packets that are transferring mid air. Whatever the attack may be, you need to be able to make sure that it doesn’t affect you while you are on a public network. One of the ways that you can do this, is by using a VPN. A VPN will protect your data when you are on a remote network. And when you use Windows 7, this process becomes a lot easier.

Before we get started in describing how to set up a VPN in Windows 7, I realize that some people do not know what a VPN is or what it does. So lets take the time now and describe it for you. The letters VPN stand for Virtual Private Network. What it does, is to create a smaller network that sits on top of a larger network, like the internet, that will only allow certain people permission to access it. If you set up the VPN, then you and whoever you allow access to, are the only ones that are allowed on it. That of course, is where the private part of the name comes from. Most of the time, you can set the VPN to be encrypted. This is why it is so effective for when you are on strange public networks. Your data can flow freely and even if they are able to see it, they will not be able to encode it.  This will prevent them from understanding what they are seeing.

So if you are using an unfamiliar remote network and you have important files that you need to protect, then your best bet is to set up your own VPN. You can either do this by using third party software or do this by using the software that is already available in Windows 7. You will need a VPN server to be able to connect to, when you are setting the VPN up. The connection must have two sides, the server and the client. Most of the times the actual server will be from a third party vendor. There are plenty of free and open source versions to choose from. To set up the client portion in Windows 7, you go into the Network and Sharing portion of the control panel. You then click on “Set up a new connection or network”. After that click on “Use my internet connection”. You then type the IP address or domain in the box and you will have a connection to that network. Anytime that you want in, just type your name and password.

Set up a secured VPN connection is very easy in Windows 7. If you are on a strange network, it pays to have one.

There are a lot of different threats that are on the internet right now but the one that anyone who has a popular web site fears is the dreaded botnet. Sure, your server may be able to be taken down by a virus or any other piece of malware but they are easy to recover from. A botnet is a whole different story. A botnet has the ability to shut down your web site without ever having to touch one piece of your hardware. It can send its zombie bots to do that. If this is the first time you have heard of a botnet then you might not know how it is able to do this and why it is such a big threat. In the following article we will explain the dynamics of the threat to you and your web site and how it is able to spread.

A botnet is a network of computers that are able to take commands from one central location. The amount of computers can be as little as a hundred or go up to as much as 100,000. They are able to get control of these computers by placing malware on the unsuspecting victims system. Once the malware is activated, it sits quietly waiting for the person who created it to give it commands. The person who is in control of these networks of computers is able to get them to do whatever they like. This means that if they want to send a large amount of spam email, they can without being detected. And the important part if you are a web site owner is that they are able to get these computers to focus on committing a DDOS attack. A DDOS attack is a Distributed Denial Of Service attack. They are able to do this by getting all of the computers that they control to focus on one server. They then start to make request to this server for certain resources. The amount of request become so much that they start to overwhelm the server. Now other people who are trying to get to the server are not able to get on. They have no idea that there is an attack happening to your server and they think that your site is broken. This makes the user not trust your now.

As you can see, a DDOS attack is a good reason for a web master to fear a botnet. You never know why someone is going to attack you with a DDOS attack. It might be a competing web site or it might be someone that is upset with you. Whatever the reason why someone is trying to attack you, they picked an effective way to do it. A DDOS attack is very hard to stop but there are ways to combat it. Make sure you check with your web site host to see if they know how to stop one.