#1 - Sept. 5, 2012, 7:29 p.m.
I’m slightly bored while waiting for my karma appeal ticket to be resolved, and with the multitude of accounts being hacked going on, I figured I might share some things I do to keep my PC as well as my credentials safe.
- Anti-Viruses – Get yourself an anti-virus and anti-malware program. You will be surprised at how many computers get infected just by not having something as simple as this. Ones I use (both free!) are Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. Conducting scans weekly (as well as keeping your anti-virus up to date) is a good way to go about things.
- Additionally, you can try Spybot Search & Destroy or stuff like AVAST! but I’m a cheap person and if security is free, why pay for it? Also, McAfee is utter nonsense. Get rid of that.
- Check First – Now you may have noticed that I linked you three links above. Did you instantly click on it? Well you shouldn’t have! The first thing you should do before clicking on any link is to check that the link actually points to where you want it to go. Typically, this will be displayed at the bottom left-hand corner of your browser when you hover over the link — do it and do yourself a favour by checking and double checking links!
- Know your computer – It can be wise (if you know what you’re doing) to run msconfig as well as task manager and check the list of services and processes that start up when you boot your PC. See anything that’s suspicious? Google it which will usually return you the stuff you need to know about any process running.
- Don’t take candy from strangers – It can be good practice to spend five minutes researching before you download anything — this includes torrents, installers as well as archive files. Read comments (if applicable), scan it first before you open it and if you’re still suspicious, just don’t install it at all.
- Common Sense – The general consensus is that if you’re not visiting any shady parts of the internet or trying to download shady things, you’ll be generally safe. If you absolutely insist that you must visit said parts of the internet, then do so on a different PC and with different credentials (and I don’t mean coolguy1 and coolguy2).
- Hosts File - This is an excellent thing to have. Every (Windows) computer comes with this (C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc). It allows you to dictate who can and can not connect to your computer (ala, blacklist). Dan Pollock (link) has an awesome compiled list which gets rid of most pop-ups, spyware sites and all that jazz; having that will make your internet browsing experience a whole lot safer and fun.
- Google Chrome – If you’re still using Internet Explorer, shame on you. Get Chrome now, and get Adblock Plus while you’re at it.
- Passwords and Accounts – Don’t toss around your credentials on every single website or gaming forum you come across. Keep them relatively separate cause chances are, if one gets compromised, someone’s going to try them on other things. Here’s a comic by xkcd which explains to you exactly what’s happening to many of the hacked accounts right now: http://xkcd.com/792/
Pair all of this with the advice posted by Regina (courtesy of Jee) and you shouldn’t go wrong really.
That’s probably all I can think of for now, I’ll try to update this in the near future.
Cheers,
-A.
P.S: The forum text formatting is whack out. I need to get used to it..
