Boxbe Blog

So, besides using Boxbe to screen your email, here are the top five ways to protect your PC from botnets, spyware, and other malware.

1. Buy a Mac

Seriously. Last year, Symantec’s official blog caused waves by saying “Simply put, at the time of writing this article, there are no file-infecting viruses that can infect Mac OS X.”

This isn’t to say their couldn’t be malware for the Mac, it’s just that their isn’t any currently. Compared to the millions of viruses for Windows, that sounds pretty good to me. For many users this isn’t possible or desireable, so keep reading for things that you can do to secure your Windows installation.

2. Upgrade to Vista

One of the claimed benefits of upgrading to Windows Vista is increased security. Symantec has backed Microsoft up with a white paper [PDF] (and a site section) that has a detailed Vista security audit and their assessment that there have been no known Vista viruses to date.

3. Install security updates

One of the interesting things about bots, spyware and other software designed to exploit your computer, is that most people become infected after a fix has been released from Microsoft. Why? Well, let’s just say that creators of malware aren’t all super geniuses.

When an exploit is revealed, there is a gap in between when a fix is released and when users actually download and install the fix. That opening gives hackers an opportunity to create a program that exploits the very problem that was just patched.

Generally, I’d advise people to wait when it comes to installing recently updated software as sometimes the fix can be worse the original problem. However security updates should be installed right away.

4. Install and use anti-virus and anti-spyware applications

Most anti-virus and anti-spyware software can be scheduled to run at specific times of day. If you eat lunch at the same time every day, consider scheduling the software to run then. It could also serve as a helpful reminder to actually eat lunch.

And don’t forget to keep your virus and spyware definitions up to date. Having outdated definitions is kind of like not having protection at all.

5. Don’t open email attachments from untrusted senders

And frankly, sometimes even from trusted senders if they aren’t technically savvy. I can’t believe that this still needs to be mentioned but these attachments aren’t opening themselves.

Bonus: Turn off your PC at night

PCs these days have a number of power saving modes that make it acceptable to leave your computer on all the time. I had gotten in the habit of leaving my home computers on all the time to guarantee instant access whenever I needed them.

If your computer has been compromised by a spam bot, leaving your computer on 24/7 gives these bots more of an opportunity to send their illicit messages. While it won’t get rid of the spam bot, it certainly will cut back on the messages sent.

Finally

Short of turning off network connectivity to your PC, many security experts believe that malware is becoming more widespread and common, everyday computers have so much power that it is far more likely for a botnet to go undetected than ever before. The internet is still a wild wholly frontier, keep yourself safe out there.

photo from Flickr user brookenovak

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 18th, 2007 at 8:13 pm and is filed under Anti-Spam, Botnet, Email, Spam, Technical, Unwanted Email. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.