By Paul Johnston

Q: What can I do to reduce my risk of viruses infecting my computer and hacker intrusion?

A1: Preventing Viruses: You would be surprised how often I am asked this question. With a few simple precautions you can greatly reduce your risk of an intrusion or infection of your PC. First and foremost buy and install a good quality virus scanner and update your virus definition files often (more on this in a moment). The most popular brands of Anti-Virus software today are Symantec's Norton Antivirus and McAfee Antivirus. Both are excellent quality products designed for a wide range of Windows Operating Systems. Once installed they monitor your system for viruses in the background while you use your computer to work, play , and surf the web. If a virus or Trojan is detected the software goes to work to isolate and clean it before it does any damage.  New viruses and Trojans are created and released on the public at an alarming rate.  Virus definition files are incremental updates released by the Antivirus companies to allow the Antivirus software on your computer to find and clean these newly created viruses. They require very little user intervention beyond having a connection to the internet. It is essential to update these files as often as possible for adequate protection against new viruses.

A2: Preventing Intrusion: The primary method for preventing unauthorized access to your computer is through the use of a Firewall. A firewall is technically a system or group of systems that enforces an access control policy between two networks. In layman's terms it is way of preventing unscrupulous people from entering your computer through the internet. There are basically two types of firewalls, hardware and software. Software firewalls are a good choice for the inexperienced user because they warn you of any potential intrusions while you are connected to the internet and everything is handled with out too much user intervention.  Zone alarm Pro is a very popular internet firewall software package and there are of course many many other brands including Symantec and McAfee. It is also certainly worth mentioning that Windows XP Home and Pro both include user configurable firewalls negating the need for any software.  The second type of firewall is known as a hardware firewall. These are physical pieces of hardware that are connected directly to your high speed DSL or Cable modem.  The signal from the high speed modem is sent to the firewall and then the signal from the firewall is sent to a single computer or several computers through the use of a built in switch. The firewall is used to administrate security for the internal computers. This usually involves some initial set up but once configured they are relatively maintenance free. This is also the most generally accepted way of sharing a single high speed connection with multiple computers transparently through what is known as NAT (Network Address Translation). This has the added benefit of masking the internal computers from the most common internet intrusions.

Please e-mail any PC related questions to janpaul@janpaul.net

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                                         Last modified: 02/01/08 12:42 AM