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.
When you are using the internet at home, you have to deal with a multitude of attacks that may be floating around waiting to strike. But when you have a corporate network that you maintain, you have to not only deal with the attacks that are already on the internet, but also attacks that may be created especially for you. Many black hat hackers see breaking through a corporate network as a big achievement. They know that a corporate network will have real security compared to a home user. So this means that when they are able to infiltrate past a corporate network, this will lead not only to more valuable data but also more esteem in the hacker community. To stop them, you must have not only the latest in software security, but the latest in hardware security as well.
When you have a corporate network that you have to secure, you have to make sure that your hardware firewall is one of the best in the market. A firewall becomes your mainline of defense when you are dealing with outside threats. Yes, you may have the latest in corporate security anti virus, but that is only good if the infection has already gotten past your first line of defense. You have to make sure that this doesn’t happen. So to avoid this type of intrusion from happening, make sure that your corporate firewall is top notch. A company such as Cisco will have what you need to keep your organization’s data protected from outside threats. Also, you can look into hardware that will scan the incoming emails for your organization. The email process is another way that attackers are able to get their malware on your corporate networks. So having a dedicated piece of hardware that will scan your incoming emails will help in being able to thwart the bad guys before they enter your system.
After you have the right hardware that is needed in protecting your organization, you are going to have to look at the right software solutions as well. When you are securing your computer at home, usually software is your first line of defense. But on a corporate network, it is used more as the secondary line of defense. The official back up just in case anything is able to get past your hardware protections. Also when you are looking at software solutions for a corporate network, you are not going to be able to use just the normal anti virus software. You are going to have to go with the enterprise edition since it is going to have to protect so many people. All of the top vendors have a enterprise version of their software that you can take advantage of.
But anti virus is not the only software that you are going to need when you are protecting your network. You are going to need some sort of enterprise anti spyware solution as well. While spyware can be just a nuisance on a home computer, on a corporate network it can give away lots of insider secrets. This is why you need to make sure that your network is protected from the tracking software that goes along with spyware.
To stop black hat hackers on a corporate network, you will need these tools to get the job done. As long as you make sure that everything is up to date and you should be fine.
There are many different types of files that you will find on a computer. You have the basic files that you see all of the time such as .exe, .jpg, .doc and others. But there are also custom files that you will see floating around your computer as well. These are files types that a certain programs must use to operate. After you own the computer for a couple of years, you will see more and more of these file types showing up. To check how many file types are installed on your computer, you can go to your control panel and check out the folder options section. If you click on the file type tab, you will see how many different file type extensions are registered to run on your computer. Most of these extensions have data that is no different than what you are already used to using but they want to make sure that the data only runs on their program only. The one thing that you should learn if you are going to operate a computer safely is which of these files types should be wary of when you download them from the internet.
The one type of file that you should scan whenever you download it from the internet is one of the most common you will see on the internet and on your computer. This is the .exe file type. This is an executable file that will allow a program to run on your computer. If you find a malicious one on the internet, it will harm your computer greatly. This is why no matter if the file comes from a trusted source or not, you should take the time and run an antivirus scan on it. If you download the wrong .exe, you can spend days trying to undo the damage that was done to your computer.
We have now warned you against the .exe file type but these next couple of file types are popular among black hat hackers because they can hide an .exe or they are able to execute code in them. A person can change the file extension of a file type so that you are fooled into believing that it is something else. But that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about embedding one type of file into another. One of the most popular file types that are known for its embedding qualities is the .wmv file type. These are files for the Windows Media Player. Hackers are able to embed nasty code in these file types and when someone tries to run them, they infect their computer. This is an especially popular file type for hackers who use Trojans to deliver their payload.
There are a couple of more file types that you should worry about as well. Files that you see every day, such as .flv, .jpg and others, are known to have the ability to embed malware in them. This is why anytime you see these types of files downloaded onto your computer; you must run an antivirus on them. It is better to be safe than sorry.