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Here we look at ways of safeguarding your computer, and the various dangers to avoid. Please note that the techniques in the following pages will not protect you 100%, but certainly improves your chances in defending your PC.
Computer Virus Information
Computer viruses are malicious programs which could damage your files and programs on your PC. Some types are not harmful, but spread, and the heavy load of infected emails on servers may cause a major slowdown on the Internet. Computer viruses also play on exploiting vulnerabilities in software.
Worms & Trojans
A worm is able to send out copies of itself to people in your address book. And then those send on to others, which causes an extreme load on network traffic, subsequently slowing down the Internet as a whole.
Trojan Horses (Trojan for short) are computer programs disguised as functional software, but compromise your security and may cause a lot of damage.
Email Hazards
Ensure that you NEVER open attachments which you are not expecting, because you risk activating a virus. And even if you are expecting an attachment, rather save it to your hard drive, and scan with your antivirus program before opening it.
Spam
Spam can best be described as unwanted email which floods our inboxes. Spam is largely commercial in nature, selling all sorts of products ranging from software to viagra and porn. Spam has become a major universal problem. One of the adverse effects is the load that spam places on web servers and bandwidth.
Phishing
Phishing is a scam using email (spam) and websites, designed to look like legitimate, trusted institutions and companies. They then use social engineering to entice you to divulge your personal information, such as credit card numbers, bank account information and passwords. This information is then used for criminal purposes, such as identity theft.
Pharming
Pharming involves tampering with the name resolution process on the internet, otherwise known as DNS cache poisoning.
Spyware and Adware
Adware is a program that installs an item onto your computer to serve advertising to you. This is basically in the form of pop-ups, or it directs your browser's homepage to sites which serves advertising.
Spyware is a little program which resides on your PC, gathering information about you, such as your surfing habits, without your knowledge.
Identity Theft
Identity theft enables perpetrators to commit their acts of crime, without raising suspicion and makes it more difficult to track and prosecute them. Identity theft is also common amongst terrorists.
Firewalls
What are firewalls? It can be best described as having a guard at the entrance to your house, allowing only authorised people inside. Firewalls can be configured to allow or block certain web traffic into your network or PC.
Security Downloads
Spyware removal software.
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