Antivirus and
firewall software are two distinct
methodologies to secure your computer
against being compromised. A firewall
blocks access to your machine, while an
antivirus scans your machine for signs
of a virus and deletes them. A third
type of product is an anti-spyware which
is specifically targeted to stop
unwanted ads and monitoring of your
computer activity. Antivirus firewall
software is incorporated in a
comprehensive security suite. A virus
will arrive gain access to your computer
either by exploiting a flaw on your
system or by being activated by the user
by pretending to be something else.
You may have
come here because you think that your pc
is already infected with a virus as it
is running slowly or showing popups when
you browse the net, it may be instead
that you are infected with spyware, take
a look at fixing spyware infection.
It is
important to have a firewall and
antivirus software otherwise you
computer may be taken over. Once your
computer is compromised in this way then
the intruder has the ability to do
anything they want with your machine,
this includes reading all your emails,
making you see popup adverts constantly,
identifying your passwords, reading all
your documents, sending out spam email
from your machine potentially infecting
your friends computers, copying illegal
files to your machine etc.
What Is A Firewall?
A
firewall (common mispellings
include firwall and fire wall)
is software running on your
computer which checks the
network traffic (e.g. you
browsing on the net) and permits
or denies passage depending on a
set of rules. Traffic to and
from your computer goes over a
number of different channels,
these are called ports, for
example web traffic goes over
port 80.
A
firewall uses up to three
methods to control the inbound
and/or outbound traffic:
-
Firewall inspection - in
this case key parts of the
packet with a database of
trusted data. Information
from within the firewall is
compared with information
coming externally, if the
characteristics are similar
enough then the data will
get through
-
Packet filtering - All web
page requests are sent in
small packets( small bits of
data) these are checked
against a set of filters.
How Can I Defend Myself?
- Stay on
top of security patches, especially
for browsers. Vulnerabilities happen
all the time. Make sure the
operating system and
software/applications are updated
with the latest patches. Depending
on the operating system, critical
patches are usually pushed out to
the computer automatically or users
will get a notice on your computer
that updates are available. The
messages should not be ignored.
Updates should be downloaded as soon
as possible.
- Have a
complete security solution. By
definition, zero day browser threats
are unknown and unrecognizable and
therefore antivirus and antispyware
scans cannot yet detect them.
Computer users need a complete
security solution, like TSI Extreme
Security, which can detect new
exploits without signatures that
target vulnerabilities.
These guidelines are always
smart, but absolutely essential if
you do not have a complete security
solution:
- Don't
download from sites that you don't
trust
- Don't
enter confidential information into
sites you are not familiar with
- Don't
shop at sites you don't know
- Update
your operating system regularly
- Always
run the latest version of your
browser software, checking regularly
for updates
- Never
follow a link from an e-mail that
asks you to enter private
information. Only malicious sites
designed to look like real sites
will ask for this. Reputable sites
will never ask you to do this!
- Never
open an e-mail or instant message
attachment unless you know and trust
the sender and can verify the
attachment was intentionally sent.