The Home Computer Security
by Roberto Saia

Well, how can I introduce the topic? What is the concept of computer security? I can try to summarize it with a few words: ‘protection of information’. I don’t know what is the correct way to start the article but I think that one of the best way is to begin with some concepts about Internet environment because, in my opinion, it has determined the increasing number of security problems in these last years. A lot of people probably believe that Internet is a dangerous place: several recent events have highlighted its security problems and furthermore a bad press regarding this kind of thing has convinced non-technical people that Internet is equal to insecurity.

Fortunately, things are substantially different and most security problems are caused by users executing legitimate actions that unintentionally cause security consequences, for examples, many problems are caused by users opening e-mail attachments that contain malicious payloads such as viruses. Through this action a user can infect a whole network, in fact, if his computer is connected to a network, some kind of virus will try to spread to other computers. What is the source of this? Simple, the main cause is related to what home users think about Computer Security. To sum up everything, they usually believe that don’t have anything on their computers that they are worried about. I want strongly to underline that it is a big mistake because home computer are a preferred target for intruders, they are classified as ‘easy-to-break-into’. What they want from computers? Firstly they wish to catch all private information stored there (such as credit card number or bank accounts) directly and secondly they can try to obtain a complete control of the computer. This last risk should be avoided for an important reason: intruders can use computer in order to execute illegal operations. Now, I hope it is clear that every user must do as much as possible to protect his system against security threats. What is the easy recipe to do this? Surely a good recipe is to keep every user informed and his systems updated. A good Antivirus and a Personal Firewall program installed on his computer is a good thing too (make sure to keep them updated). To perform this task there are a lot of commercial and freeware software. To sort out all concepts, here are some others useful advice which can help you to reach a positive result in a security environment: to install software updates (especially about Operating System, Antivirus and Personal Firewall software);

• Use good passwords where requested and change them frequently (don’t use common words or short passwords, use at least 8 characters);
  
• Make regularly backups of your important files and store them in a secure place (using different supports at different places is suitable);
  
• Don’t open any unknown file such as suspicious e-mail attachment (If you must do it, first check them with an updated Antivirus);
  
• Do not keep your computer online when you are not using it (or, at least, during this time, disable files and print sharing services).

At this time I would like to thank you for your time and I hope you have found this article useful and, above all, that you will follow my recommendations about your computer security

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