Is your personal data safe?

We find these days that is not a simple question. There are many vulnerabilities in personal computers. And, keeping up with all of them is not an easy task. With a much more sophisticated hacking community, attacks against your computer can come from anywhere and anyone. The best defense against this arising problem is to install software to stop the problem before it starts.

Top Threats to Your PC

To better understand what you are dealing with, let us take a look at the problems closely. The top threats to computers world wide is, Patch Management, Viruses, Spyware, and Spam. A Virus, is a software program capable of reproducing itself and usually capable of causing great harm to files or other programs on the same computer. Spyware is any technology that assists in gathering information about a person or organization without their knowledge. On the Internet, "spyware is programming that is put in someone's computer to secretly gather information about the user and relay it to advertisers or other interested parties.” Spam, is an inappropriate attempt to use a mailing list, or other networked communications facility as a broadcast medium by sending the same message to a large number of people including those who may not have needed for it. Patch Management, the process of controlling the deployment and maintenance of interim software releases into production environments. It helps you to maintain operational efficiency and effectiveness, overcome security vulnerabilities, and maintain the stability of your production environment.

Patch Management

The most important of these issues is Patch Management. Microsoft is constantly posting updates to patch the holes in Windows. Without these updates the rest of the software protection will do you little good. Microsoft provides many ways in assisting you to obtain these updates. Now with Service pack 2 for Windows XP Professional/Home, updates are easier than ever to receive. Automatic updates are now starting to take over most of the administration work of patch management. But, there is always a chance that a few computers in your organization could not be receiving updates correctly. So to better protect your computer and your companies data, Microsoft has developed many tools to help you find these rogue computers. The strongest tool at your disposal is the MBSA. The Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer is a tool that helps with the assessment phase of an overall security management strategy. It will inform you of any computers in your organization without current security updates. Remember, without patch management, virus protection, spyware protection, Spam protection, is a waste of your companies time and money.

Security

Spyware, the new thorn in our side. It can compromise security, and slow down productivity all in one swoop. With spyware on your computer, you could be transmitting sensitive data to 3rd parties. With that in mind let us talk about how to stop spyware. Prevention, is key to eradicating this threat. We know that this software can come from websites, downloads and online games. Microsoft has realized this threat and they have developed a tool for this situation. Microsoft Windows Anti-Spyware is a security technology that helps protect Windows users from spyware and other potentially unwanted software. It can automatically scan your computer at a pre-determined time. It also automatically downloads the most recent spyware signatures for your protection. So far, our team has not yet found one program that can find and protect your computer from every spyware/adware program. But when you use two or more of the anti-spyware programs available to you on the market, spyware should not be a problem for your organization. As mentioned earlier, the best protection against this threat is prevention and awareness.

SPAM

Spam, the old thorn in our side. It is one of the largest and most annoying problems our companies are faced with everyday. It cuts into employees productivity and company efficiency. If you have a company that has 50 employees, each employee spends 15 minutes sorting threw junk email. That is twelve and a half hours of lost time and money, daily! Once again Microsoft has developed another tool to combat this situation. Microsoft has included additional features and functionality to Outlook 2003. It now has junk email filtering capabilities, safe senders list, blocked senders list, safe recipients list, and auto update, which automatically updates your junk email filter, so that you can have the latest methods to block unwanted messages. There are also many other software programs on the market that can filter out unwanted messages. Once you find the program that fits the needs of your organization, you will be on your way to a hassle free emailing environment.

We have seen many ways in which our computers can be brought to their knees and our companies efficiency go out the window. Now that you are aware of what lurks in the dark of the Internet, you should be better prepared and capable of responding swiftly to the many different attacks you may face in your network environment.

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