Basic computer security

Basic Computer Secutity

You must run quality security software program on your computers to safeguard your work and private data from viruses, spyware, and other security threats. In terms of security, there is no substitute for quality. See below our recommended quality solutions. If any of the following is difficult for you, get an IT Expert to do it for you. You have to do the following or risk all your work/data being compromised /think of it as locking your front door/:

Get good anti virus software e.g. one of the below.

Suggested antivirus software:

AVG

Avira

Norton Anti virus

McAffee Anti Virus

Panda Security

Sophos Anti Virus

Be sure to regularly update your ‘virus definitions’ e.g. once per 1 week. Keep the Firewall runing. Install an anti-spyware application. There are many available, some good, some bad. Email Attachments: BEWARE OF ATTACHMENTS. Usually do not open email attachments you aren't expecting. Viruses have some very nasty messages to trick you into opening the attachement e.g. "Your email account has been cancelled, see attachment for details". Even worse, the virus looks like it comes from an email address you recognise e.g. from admin@yourDomain.com / where ‘your domain’ may be the website that you always use /. Virus attachments can have the following ‘file extension’: .exe, .pif. If you receive a .zip attachment and open it - make sure it doesn’t contain a file with one of those extensions. Usually do not open attachments you haven’t requested, even if they appear to be from people you know.

Why do I receive, notices that emails from me could not be delivered?

How did another person send an email that seemed like it was from me?

Why do such emails seem to be from someone who is not in my organisation?

This is usually the result of a virus on someone elses computer sending the emails, but which makes it seem like the emails are from you, or to put it in a different way: A virus that spoofs the ‘from address’. The important (and annoying) thing to notice is that the virus might be not in your computer, it is on someone elses. So even when you have quality anti-virus software that keeps your computer clean, there is someone else available who’s computer is infected and sending these emails out.

Be sure you have good anti-virus software and tell everyone you know to do the same.