Phishings Scams - Unfortunately most of us get spam emails on a very regular basis. They can be promoting all sorts of junk products from pills to enhance certain parts of your body to girls from Russia looking for a husband. However there are also emails pretending to be from your bank asking you to update your details because of a possible security breach. They look very genuine so you click on the link provided, fill in the form with details like sort code, pass code and date of birth. But instead of your bank receiving these details, it's a criminal organization who use the details to steal all your money. This is why you should not click on any link within an email claiming to be a bank.
Shredding Your Old Hard Drive - So many people feel guilty about throwing their old computer away so donate it to charity or sell it for cash. Then there are other people who simply toss it away. But you need to be very careful about who might be able to get their hands on your old hard drive because there are ways for criminals to access very private data that is still stored on it. Even if you delete everything from your computer they can access the data such as passwords, NI numbers and a whole load more. This is why you should find a local company you can take your hard drive to so that they can shred it. That way there is no way for anyone to be able to access your presonal details.
When connecting to the internet you are at constant risk of viruses and mallware. Sometimes these viruses just cause a nuisance by making your computer run strangely. However there are others that track every keystroke you make meaning they'll be able to collect passwords and other such sentitive data. There are a couple of really good programs that you can get including AVG Free - Loads of people who connect to the internet use this. There is the free version which is very good but there is also the upgrade which gives you even more security. Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware (MAM) - If you are using the free version of AVG then having MAM will really compliment it because it specifically targets mallware.
These days there are loads of cafe's who offer free wi-fi as long as you buy something like a coffee or a sandwich. However more often than not these networks aren't secure. If you are connecting to an unsecure network anyone can steal your passwords. This is fine if you aren't logging into any site that requires a password however if you are then you need to make sure that it is secure. For instance, if you are logging into Gmail, you will be able to do so securly because of the padlock that appears at the bottom of your browser and also the fact that it is https rather than http. The "s" means that it's secure. Online banks are also secure. If you do a lot of connecting to the internet via WiFi cafes then look at getting public VPN which costs about $6 to $8 a month.
Tags: computer, security, virus, malware