Maintaining your computer
How do you update and patch?
The default setting on Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) is for automatic updates. It is wise not to change this setting as it means that your computer will find the latest updates for you. An advantage of Service Pack 2 for those with a dial-up connection is that it can do multiple sessions for one download. This means you can start a big download, get part-way through and go offline, then the download will resume where it left off next time you are online.
Depending on your system you may sometimes need to take a further step to install those updates you've downloaded; just follow the instructions.
How do you get your older system in order?
If you have a Windows 95 or 98 operating system, these earlier versions were not built for the environment of malicious code, targeting Microsoft systems in particular, that we have today. You can no longer get updates for Windows 95. If your computer hardware is quite old, you may find that it doesn't have the capacity to handle newer, larger operating systems like Windows XP.
If you have never updated your Windows 98 system, the downloads to do so will be massive, but it is still a possibility. Although the majority of recent malware is written for Windows XP, there are still plenty of Trojans, worms, viruses and spyware on the Internet written for older systems. Thus, getting your older machine updated is still important so you are ready for any malware that can infect your machine.
The operating system updates after 95 are available on the Microsoft website, but 98 does not have an automatic update feature. Automatic updating is possible on Windows ME, 2000 and XP. Some of the security patches and updates can be fairly large files these days. If you need to do a lot of downloading to bring your computer up-to-date, and you have a dial-up connection, you could, as mentioned before, look for a free CD or ask a friend to help out by providing the downloads to you on a disk. Make sure the free CD comes from a legitimate source i.e. Personal Computer Magazine or similar. Bogus CDs have sometimes been made available to entrap the unwary.
How do you update your security software?
With a firewall, you will get various security alerts when something unexpected happens, i.e. a program on your computer tries to access the Internet. The alert will offer a recommended response. For those who are not very confident with the technology, as long as the recommendations come from the makers of your firewall, you can follow the recommendation.
Anti-virus software has the ability to manually scan your computer for viruses and malicious software such as spyware. Scanning your hard disk for viruses should be done every week, or sooner, depending on your usage. The scan will produce a report of anything found and quarantine them waiting for deletion.
How can you clean out cookies?
It is a good idea to periodically delete the cookies you have accumulated.
You can clean out cookies on your PC by opening your browser (Internet Explorer) and going to Tools, then Internet Options.
Click on the General tab, in the Temporary Internet files section, click delete cookies. You can also be selective about those you delete by clicking Settings, and then clicking View files. There you can select the cookies you want to get rid of and press Delete.
You can also clean out your cookies by using anti-spyware software or a reputable anti-virus scanner.
Backing up your files
A vital part of your computer's security is the back-up of the information stored on your computer. If you have a simple home computer, an appropriate back-up might be copying key document files, emails and your address book. You could use a CD writer to copy those files to a blank CD. This may need to be done daily or weekly, depending on how much you use the machine. The backup CDs should be stored somewhere away from the computer. If you have confidential information on that computer, the back-up must be put somewhere secure. If you are a small business owner who is very reliant on that data, you should do a full back-up of your data daily and either store that back-up in a secure, fire-proof location, or possibly store it off-site.
Periodically it is a good idea to check your backup and make sure you can read the data and that you are backing up the right data. If your backup isn't working, your information is very vulnerable.
Click here to return to the NetSafe Computer Security home page.
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