This week Derick King from DK Technology makes a guest post for us. Derick has helped many of our clients with many of their computer issues involving computer security, file management, back-up solutions and more.
Many home computer users are familiar with the marketing campaigns of the anti-virus companies, telling them that their product will protect the user’s computer from many threats. Along with the software vendors, many department store sales people blindly leads the user to believe that anti-virus software is all that is needed for complete computer/data protection. Therefore, home computers users purchase new anti-virus software to be their security blanket.
Why is anti-virus software is not enough? Most anti-virus software is developed to identify malicious software by it’s signature. However, anti-virus companies are beginning to develop software that is behavior based which will be more dependable. The problem with signature based anti-virus software is that it can only identify malicious software that’s in it’s database. Which means if there is a new virus or malicious software that’s being sent to users with anti-virus software with all updates, the user is not protected because the new virus is not in the database.
The following are other things that anti-virus software are not capable:
Anti-virus software does not offer a firewall feature which means that it doesn’t prevent unwanted intruders from accessing your system nor does it have port blocking capabilities.
Anti-virus software does not monitor ports which means that it doesn’t look for people trying to hack your system, or offending software trying to phone home.
Anti-virus software does not offer content filtering which means that it does not protect your children or other users from accessing unwanted material on the internet.
So how do you protect your computer? Protecting your computer/data takes awareness, the users must be sure to keep the operating system patched with updates, users must install anti-virus/anti-spyware software and keep it updated, and a firewall application or hardware should be used. Additionally, users must be careful of the applications they download from the internet and be mindful of email attachments.
Derrick King is owner of DK Technology located in Tupelo, MS. His form specializes in providing a more secure environment at your business or at home.
