Protect your Computer
Protect your Computer
The following tips apply to both your work and personal computers. Take them seriously, especially if you use them for both work and personal activities.
- Be sure that your system and applications are up to date, especially with respect to security patches and releases
- Turn on automatic updates on your system
- Keep your computer clean; uninstall unused or unnecessary programs/applications. You may use some freely available tools to help you in this regard. See the tools and resources section for additional information
- Make sure that your system's persnoal firewall is turned on at all times
- Install a good anti-virus/anti-malware program/application and make sure it remains updated
- Limit your use of browser plugins/addons/extensions. If you must use them, ensure they remain updated
- Use one of the freely available resources to check the health of your browser
- Consider turning on your browser's privacy settings to protect your online activities
- Maintain a list of all the programs/applications that are installed on your computer, in case you need to rebuild the system for some reason
- Back up your documents on a regular basis. Computer hardware and software failures and many malware infections can cause data loss. Make sure you maintain long-term backups, in case some of your files are infected
