10 Actions You can Take Right Now To Improve Your Computer Security: Am I really at risk?

Many years ago some of the usual risks to our finances would have been losing checks from our checking account, or maybe a car accident.

Even though today we still encounter those same risks from before, we now encounter computer threats that we never saw before.

Are we all at risk?  Yes, we are. It doesn’t really matter what income level a person has, everybody is a potential target of hackers. The reasoning behind this is that hackers do not always look for financial gain, but also look to gain access to other people’s computers to use them as slaves to hack other machines.

Another issues is that no person, of for that matter company or organization is completely immune from hackers, but we can all do is follow some principles to make it extremely hard to anybody to hack our systems or accounts. The more difficult we make it to become a target, the less interest a potential hacker may have to do any harm to us, and we thus become a less easy target.

Following these steps is not a fool proof method, but it’s a good start to better computer security.

1. Perform all system updates on any computers you have, such as Windows computers and even Android phones or tables.
2. Update your antivirus, and make sure it is active and working.  Windows 8 comes with a free antivirus called Windows defender, and Windows 7 comes with Microsoft  Security Essentials.
3. Use Strong passwords.  Never use passwords that are easy to hack. Do not use the same passwords for different websites.
4. We also suggest enabling 2 steps authentication on any accounts that offer it. These systems require a second piece of information to allow log in, such as a text message or email Pin.
5. Never provide any kind of personal information to anybody that calls you. Banks already have that information and will not usually request it from you. In case they do, call them directly and ask to speak to them.
6. Never click on unknown links received by email. You could be downloading a virus.
7. Never watch a video on Facebook, it could be a virus trying to hijack your computer.
8. Never give out your passwords or any private information to anybody by email, skype, chats. Those are not secure ways to divulge private information.
9. Use a strong password on all your Wifi connections.
10. Back up all your data on a secure location.

You will find on our technology section here http://www.librededeudas.com/learningcenter.php many different articles on technology.

Remember that security starts at home and the more secure you are the safer you will be.