IN RECENT YEARS, there has been a huge rise in the number of high-profile security attacks on home computers. These attacks can take many forms — from infecting your computer with a virus, to seizing your bank or credit card account details. And, the most rising attack includes phishing or social engineering and breach of privacy. Here is a simple guide to keeping your home computer — and your data — safe on the Internet.

 

Install and maintain anti-virus software

There are plenty of anti-virus software packages available. Few are free and few need to be bought. This software checks for known viruses by scanning your computer periodically with its own virus database that it updates from time to time. Most will also check for viruses on incoming email. Of course, you need to configure it for the same. It is important to update the software and the anti-virus database. New viruses are discovered almost daily. At least once a week you should check the website of the vendor to see if there is an update available.

Links 
AVG AntiVirus: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

Clam AntiVirus:  http://www.clamwin.com

The biggest threats these days to your online privacy are the spywares and malwares that get installed once you open suspicious sites and usually free peer-to-peer software or many of the porn dialers.

Anti-spyware software are similar to an anti-virus software that detects known spywares and malware and tries to eradicate them safely from you system. There are many free anti-spyware software available that a PC user must consider downloading.

Search & Destroy SpyBot: http://www.safer-networking.org/

Free AVG AntiSpyware: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/avg-anti-spyware-free/lng/us/tpl/v5

Vulnerability or exploit is a passage to your computer due to improper programming of the software. You might have heard that Windows XP initially released service pack 1, then service pack 2 and finally service pack 3. Also, you have an option to update your windows via the internet, this feature is nothing but updating your current version of windows to defend against all the exploits and vulnerabilities known.

Always opt for official version of the operating system and other software.

Update your operating system form time to time.

Update the other software that has a discovered vulnerability.

Firewall, as the name suggests is a wall that blocks off hacking attacks on your machine. There are n number of hacking attacks that might be faced by you on your system, amongst which the most common are the DOS (Denial of Service), Mail Bombing, Eve Dropping and phishing. Even though the firewall is considered a very advanced technique of programming to counter hacking, it cannot filer all of the phishing or the social engineering attacks.

I suggest you download Mozilla Firefox — a web browser, which is completely free and a very reliable one as far as security is concerned. You get it at  http://www.getfirefox.com/

All the solutions and remedies are in no way a complete solution to save your PC from different security threats of the cyber world. As we know, every lock has a key. Similarly, every solution has a drawback that is been exploited by hackers. But using these steps does minimize the chance of your PC becoming the victim.