Computer Protection - 1

A well-known international software security firm has found that a computer without up-to-date protection would be attacked by viruses or ‘worms’ or hacked into within an average nine minutes of being connected to the web. Scary isn't it?

Firewalls:

In the last millennium I decided to set up some protection using a firewall, a piece of software which creates a barrier against these things. Minutes, after loading the firewall it was telling me that it was preventing hackers from getting into my computer and it gave me the IP address of where they were hacking from. I could not believe it. I was not important and yet people were trying to get into my computer. I was getting so many alerts that after a couple of days I allowed the software to do its protection work without having to inform me.

Believe me, they're trying to get into your computer too! It's not difficult to protect your computer and it need not cost you a penny.

Windows Firewall :

Rather belatedly Microsoft launched some inbuilt protection with Windows XP. If your operating system is XP and you've downloaded SP2 (service pack 2) you've got Windows Firewall at your disposal. If you've not downloaded it, do so, and turn on your automatic updates.

This firewall is good for computer-phobes who are able to switch their machines on but struggle after that. There is not very much on it to set up and it runs fairly trouble free in the background. I would regard this as a necessary minimum firewall.

If your Windows operating system is earlier than XP you've probably got no firewall.

Zone Alarm:

If you are comfortable with a computer I would recommend a more sophisticated programme – Zone Alarm – which I've been using for years, long before Microsoft brought theirs out. The editor of www.download.com is of the same opinion and gives it a full 5-star rating. 43 million who downloaded this free software from this page probably agree.

Over time the producers of Zone Alarm have refined and improved the product so that it's pretty easy to set up. Most importantly, this programme puts you in control of which programmes are allowed to access the internet from your computer and which ones from the internet are allowed to access your computer. If you don't understand why a programme has suddenly sprung into life you can disallow it until you do understand.

The software includes anti-virus monitoring and e-mail protection, but only basic, and will not be your solution to these problems. This subject will be covered in a future edition of the Newsletter.

Test your computer's security :

You can test how effective your computer security is from this interesting site - hackerwatch.org

Go to The Forum to comment or to offer your own advice. Maybe you've used another great free program - Comodo Firewall Pro - and you can tell us about it?

Article submitted by the editor.

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Next Issue

The next issue (no 5) of the newsletter will be further advice about how to protect your computer against viruses, hackers, adware, spyware, malware and other nasties...