If you truly want your PC to be protected...
Consider, taking advice, from a guy (Me)... who's currently pursuing a computer science degree, with plans to work in Computer Security. I'm also in the process of helping write case studies, on banking and sophisticated targeted malware attacks.
I do wanna say this though..
Norton. It's a Symantec Product. It's okay. Although, keep in mind any antivirus software you purchase will do two simple things.
It'll retrieve updates, and it'll scan for viruses that correspond with those updates. This is pretty effective for the *most* part, however it has a huge flaw.
What does it do about a computer virus that's been newly released. Well? Nothing. It's unknown. Invisible to the Virus Scanner. Your antivirus software says it's Clean. And give you a false sense of Confidence as you open files, and browse the web.
Until that Virus, is considered (in the "wild") which in computer security terms, means, thousands, and thousands of PC's, it'll simply sit there, undetected, doing whatever it's programmed to do.
And. Criminals, know this. They have evolved. And they know have the ability to use there specially coded malware, to keep themselves undetected for weeks, if not months. They know, they have plenty of time, after our computers are infected.. to perform malicious attacks.
It's a cat and mouse game. And Keep this in mind... (if you continue on reading, which, I hope you will...
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Now... Growing Up, in this generation. We've seen... a dramatic, slide of focus & motivation, with Online Malware.
It used to be, Hackers, simply wanted to screw and jerk people around. Doing mischievous things, like, deleting files, or, corrupting information. These days however, Criminals could care less about your word documents, and your vacation photos. Now... there fascinated in your <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Online Banking, </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;">and Financial Information.</span>
We are seeing, Malware Attacks, where, something as simple as visiting NBC.com can infect your computer, or opening a email, or playing a game on Facebook. Not opening obviously suspicious files, but, simple everyday things. Their called Browser Exploits, and there a growing problem.
Once your Computer gets hit by this new breed of Malware. You can pretty much kiss all your money, and your credit goodbye.
These sophisticated attacks, interject themselves into your Online Banking, Retirement & Investment Accounts, and Email Accounts. All designed to grab as much information about you, and give it to the criminals. Even more scary is these programs, allow direct access to your machine, so, they can login to say, Bank of America, from your computer and start a Transfer, of everything in your bank account.
And the key is, since the transfer is initiated from YOUR computer, guess who Bank of America thinks, started the transfer?
And it's never just the bank account. These new breeds of Malware grab Credit Card numbers as you enter them shopping online. It tries to grab information about your Tax Returns, to automate the process of filing fraudulent tax returns. <span style="text-decoration: underline;">I've even seen these malware attacks, cash in investment accounts, transfer the money to personal checking, and than be transferred out, all in the course of a few days. </span>
And... if a Criminal doesn't get all the information they need. Well. They... can add text boxes to web pages as you log-on, asking for your security questions, or credit card information. And you wouldn't even know the difference. It's seamlessly tied into pages.
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So, what can you do about keeping your Computer and Identity safe from this exact kind of Fraud? For one, I always, always advocate, running and installing Windows Updates. These updates, are security updates issued from Microsoft, designed to patch holes in Windows, so it's harder for your personal computer, to get infected.
Second - I always recommend installing a Antivirus Software. And every few days, clicking the Update Button, manually. Along with, once a week, performing a full system scan.
I personally, have found two products, that tend to catch threats, before they are in the wild. They work, by looking at a Virus, with a "Heuristic" engine, that analyzes how the file runs, and what it does. Both Mcafee & ESET NOD, seem to be superior at catching things.
I personally, have found Microsoft Security Essentials, Avira, and AVG. To be generally, very ineffective at blocking unknown threats. This is my personal opinion, from countless hours of testing. Obviously, it's your decision, what you do. I just, wouldn't use the software myself.
Trend Micro, Symantec Norton, & Bitdefender. All, I'd say, are middling performers. You'll definitely see, better protection overall. But, I wouldn't personally recommend them. Kaspersky, used to offer wonderful performance and I'd recommend it, however, it's fallen behind, in protecting computers from new & emerging threats.
Beyond that though.
I'd additionally suggest, setting up stronger passwords. Americans, typically, aren't so great with this, and end up using things like there pets name, or a kids name or a birth date. Instead, you should try to use complex passwords with upper cases and numbers, with no actual words or phrases. Just, random letters and numbers.
And... Not using that same password, at every single website. Because, when one website get's hacked, they suddenly have a password to all your accounts.
As for Emails. Be very suspicious of files, you weren't expecting, with file extensions ending in .PDF, .EXE, .SCR, and .Bat. These files typically are used to distribute or install malware onto your machine.
[this post was last edited: 3/19/2015-04:08]
