Computers have become such an important part of our lives – for accessing information, keeping in touch with friends and family, shopping, working, and other activities – that it’s easy to overlook the risks of using them. We rely on computers so much that many of us neglect the importance of PC security to keep our passwords, credit card numbers, and other personal information safe from identity thieves.

To help keep your computer and information safe, we’ve compiled a list of seven computer security tips to follow that can reduce your chances of being an identity theft victim by enhancing your PC’s security:

1. Never open unsolicited e-mail.

Always delete unsolicited e-mail, and never, ever, click on a link in an e-mail from someone you don’t know. Doing so could infect your computer with a virus.

2. Use strong passwords that are impossible for a thief to guess.

Use a different password for each login, and make sure that each password is a combination of upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. People who use the same passwords for everything make it easy for thieves to steal their identities.

3. Install antivirus software and keep it updated.

There are many good antivirus programs online that people can download free or for a donation. Download at least three, run them at least once a week, and keep them updated.

4. Protect your computer with a firewall.

A computer firewall creates a virtual wall between your computer and thieves who want to access your personal information. Hardware and software firewalls help keep your computer safe when you’re online.

5. Don’t share your personal information online.

Social networks are fun and great for connecting with friends, but thieves use them to trick people into providing their personal information. You wouldn’t share your private information with a stranger on the street, so don’t share it with a stranger online, either, no matter how long you’ve “known” them.

6. Keep your operating system updated.

When your computer operating system tells you an update is available, update it as soon as possible, and get in the habit of keeping it updated at all times to thwart identity thieves.

7. Be wary of fake antivirus notifications and other scareware.

Antivirus viruses, also known as scareware, trick users into thinking that they have a computer virus in order to frighten them into providing their credit card information to download an “antivirus program” that will remove it. If you have scareware installed on your machine, disconnect your computer from the Internet, call a computer tech to remove it, and remember to never provide any personal information in the pop-ups that appear on your screen.

source: http://ezinearticles.com/?7-Tips-to-Secure-Your-Home-Computer&id=5471419

Whenever a new user or beginner thinks of computer format, or wants to format their pc manually, they might have many questions arising in their mind during the process of formatting and installation of new operating system in their PC. Here I would like to explain some highly important things about computer format and OS reinstallation that might be helpful to you.

What does it mean by formatting the computer?

If you have discussed your pc problems with any one and got the answer that you have to format your pc, hard disk or operating system, it means that your computer operating system or more than one of the installed components or software are corrupted, damaged or not behaving as it should.

Formatting pc means erase all the data from your system drive (Hard disk drive where you operating system like windows and Linux is installed) including OS and to reinstall whole OS and all the necessary hardware drivers and software application that you want to use in your pc. In short, it freshens up your whole computer working behavior and performance.

Why you actually need to do this?

Simple, because you want to restore the performance of your pc and remove all OS related issues that you might have been facing. You also have to do this step if your pc and whole OS is infected by computer virus and you need to clean it from the scratch.

What risk is involved, can it be done manually?

According to me, formatting pc is as simple as installing any other application software in your pc if you keep some points cleared in your mind. The main risk involved here is the risk of data loss. Here you must understand the risk of loss of data located on your system drive which may be at the locations listed below.

1. My documents.
2. Desktop
3. My Music
4. My Pictures
5. My Videos
6. System drive (i.e. C:\)

You must backup all the data from above location to make it secure from accident loss of data. Now, the answer to another question that, can it be done manually is yes, you must do it your self. Only you need to do is backup your data and what you must have is bootable disk of your computer operating system.

I have seen many people spending money to format their pc or laptop from the computer shop. It seems difficult only until you don’t attempt to do it yourself.

source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Beginners-Guide-on-Computer-Formatting-and-OS-Installation&id=5628306

A virus attack on home computers these days is actually more of a rare occurrence than it used to be. A virus will easily infect a computer, if that computer has no anti virus protection or a very new type of infection is released on the internet, then picked up by your unprotected computer.

Unless a virus is detected by software designed to find such, one doesn’t know that their computer is infected until strange events start to occur. These types of events show how computer irregularity may be picked up so that you can identify a behavior that points to a virus infection.

• Program or more than one program may take an unusual amount of time to start
• A program may refuse to start at all
• A program may not behave in a normal manner
• If not connected the internet may not connect when you attempt a connection
• Anti virus or anti malware programs may refuse to start or operate
• Your email program refuses to operate or may send messages of its own accord.
• Computer may continually close down and restart without your intervention
• The computer may take an unusual amount of time to perform any function

To ensure no further damage is to occur, it is best not operate the computer any further. Ensure you are not connected to the internet as well; otherwise you may infect other computers or your own with more infections.

Options to ensure a return to normal operation may involve running one anti-virus program and multiple anti-malware software one after another with full scans after restarting a computer in safe mode.

Alternatively, you may need to seek the services of a computer professional or technician to ensure complete removal and to save time and future costs. If you get to a point where a complete re-installation of your operating system is required, if you have not backed up your precious data, the loss of data is incalculable.

source: http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Know-My-Computer-Has-a-Virus&id=4941985

The reason that viruses are constantly floating around the Internet is their ability to replicate themselves. They can make copies of themselves in various types of data files. A virus may start harming your computer the moment that the file that it has corrupted is executed. This can cause serious damage to your computer although other viruses can be just a nuisance and bug you more than anything else. There are a few different types of viruses and it’s important for you to know which ones are which.

Firstly there are memory-resident viruses. This type of virus is not looking for other hosts to infect once it in executed. A memory-resident virus waits until the computer user opens files so that they can corrupt them. They can replicate themselves but do not possess the ability to find other hosts.

A non-memory resident is worse again, along with being able to replicate itself, it also has a finder module for other hosts. Once executed within your system it will instantly start looking for other hosts to infect. While the replication module is corrupting files, the finder module is searching for more files to corrupt. When it finds files to infect, it instructs the replication module to do so. Once your application programs are infected, the non-memory resident virus has control of those programs.

The most common type of virus in the 90s was the boot virus. This was possible because the use of floppy disks was so popular. Once executed a boot virus corrupts the boot sector or the master boot record (MBR) of a hard-disk. Once it has infected one of these, it can be tough to remove. It continues this cycle by infecting any future disks that are read by the computer. Most anti-virus programs can sort out a problem in the master boot record. To remove one of these viruses from your computer you need to obtain bootable anti-virus disks, which will remove boot sector viruses quickly and easily.

The most common type of viruses now are file viruses. Once in your system they infect program libraries on your computer. This virus is sneaky because when it enters a host file, it modifies it to make sure that the next time the file is executed that the viruses is launched. File viruses have been known to corrupt the executables of standard DOS, OS/2, Windows and Unix.

Script viruses are like file viruses but are written in the languages used on the net like HTML, PHP and JavaScript etc. A script virus however may only be a small part of a larger virus. They can infect quite a few different parts of your system as they corrupt any file that allows the execution of scripts.

And finally, Macro viruses use the macro’s within the applications on your computer to replicate themselves on your system. Macros are commonly used in word processing programs; macros make recurring tasks easier or automatic. These forms of viruses can often spread via e-mail and damage the document. They do not however cause as much damage as many of the other viruses discussed here.

source: http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Different-Types-of-Computer-Viruses&id=4823499

There are so many things you have to watch out for when you’re online, and one of the worst of those is the good old computer virus. Now that broadband Internet is almost everywhere it’s making things a lot easier for viruses to get to your computer quickly. This is why it’s very important to have a very good firewall on your computer, as well as a good antivirus program. It’s just as important to keep them updated on a regular basis – having out-of-date security software is pointless.

Most computer protection software will update on its own, however your firewall may stop your antivirus software from updating. You should make sure that you have your firewall is set to allow these updates to come through. If you have something like Zone Alarm, it will ask you if you would like to allow the software to access the Internet. You’ll see the same type of activity when a computer virus is trying to get onto your system. Your firewall and your computer virus software should both stop this type of activity, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t keep an eye on things.

Sometimes a computer virus can get onto your computer and can do damage very quickly, while other times the process is slow and you mightn’t know what is going on for quite a while. Sometimes a computer virus will be planted that does nothing but install other viruses secretly. This can be very confusing, and can lead to a lot of problems if your software is not up-to-date. At times you may get a virus that your antivirus software doesn’t recongize and cant’ stop. If you think this is the case, update your antivirus software immediately and run another full system scan.

With broadband Internet access you can surf the Internet much faster, but you can also pick up a computer virus much faster. Sadly, one nasty computer virus is all it takes to completely destroy every single file on your computer. There are people out there with nothing better to do than coming up with new and smarter computer viruses to give home computer users more headaches. Why do they do this? To prove that they can – the average computer virus “author” is an 18 – 30 year old male, single and usually lives alone/at home with parents. These guys literally have nothing better to do with their days. It’s kinda sad really.

So folks keep your anti-virus software updated and make sure you have a solid firewall installed too. Do everything you can to make life difficult for the cyber criminals out there.

source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Computer-Viruses—A-Major-Digital-Headache&id=4823338

It is really boring and annoying if you find your computer is no longer as good as when you first used it. When your computer show signs that it took time before your windows can be booted, then your PC is suffering from “Computer running slow syndrome”.

There are several reasons why your computer is running so slow. Maybe you have loaded your computer with pictures, files, music, documents and programs on it and later on delete it. That is the very reason why your computer got cluttered and messed up thus causing your computer to slow down. You need to clean it once a month by running scan disk and then defragment your hard drive. This is one way of keeping your hard drive in its finest condition and will keep your computer running smoothly. The scan disk utility and defragmenter can be found under the system tools in folder which is inside accessories.

Another reason is your computer may have virus. You will know that your computer is infected with virus if it does respond properly in spite of clicking on certain commands but nothing happened. There are several indications when your pc got infected. When your computer exhibits bi-polar behaviour (one minute it’s on and the next minute it is off for no reason at all). In order to be safe from virus, run your updated version of antivirus software. You can update your antivirus online before running your antivirus software.

Start up programs may also be a reason why your computer does not start at once. These programs usually start with your system and run in the background so you have to disable the program that you do not use. You can do this manually by deleting programs from the startup folder or with the help of a system health check program that will do it for you.

The registry can also cause your computer to slow down. You can download a registry scanner tool program. You can find them online and they are very simple to install and use.

If you have done everything and still your computer run slow then you might have too many programs running on your computer. Find how much memory your computer has in the system tools and at the system information and make sure you do not have too many programs running at once.

To have your computer run at its optimum capacity, you have to keep it clean, run your system tools and do viruses scan regularly. If you are scratching your head wondering how you can do all this the best solution is this. Download and run a system scanner. This will scan your registry and your computer for errors and problems and fix them for you in minutes saving you hundreds of dollars in repair bills.

source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-Your-Computer-is-Running-Slow-and-How-to-Fix-it-Quickly&id=4541642

Sometimes referred to as a multipartite virus, the hybrid virus is one of the more difficult types of computer virus to bring under control. Essentially, the hybrid virus will combine elements of other virus programs in a new combination that will often slip past protections that would stop the original component viruses. Generally, a hybrid virus is capable of infecting both system sectors and program files, making it especially difficult to locate and remove from a system.

In many cases, the hybrid virus will include elements of both file infectors and boot infectors. The idea behind this approach is to launch a two-pronged attack on the system. As the multi-part virus enters the system, elements settle into program files, while at the same time identifying and infiltrating various sections of the operating system. This means that each time the executable file  imbedded with the hybrid virus runs, the result is an activation sequence that helps the virus to proliferate.

At the same time, the hybrid virus normally works into the section of the hard drive that controls the start up procedures for the computer. As with the infected program files, the virus is activated each time the system is booted up. Over time, this will damage the operation of the system, and possibly shut it down altogether.

The dual nature of the hybrid virus makes it extremely difficult to remove once it is in place. Unless all elements of the virus are removed, any remaining presence will quickly regenerate and re-infect the entire system. For this reason, special care should be taken to clean the system thoroughly, and making sure to conduct a virus check immediately after the cleaning takes place.

Of course, the best way to deal with a hybrid virus is to not become infected in the first place. One way to minimize the chances for infection is to be extremely careful about opening attachments that are of a suspicious nature. Care should also be taken to keep anti-virus software updated, and to not download programs from any online source that is not familiar and trusted.

source: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-hybrid-virus.htm

A polymorphic virus is a computer virus which is capable of mutating itself when it replicates, making it more difficult to identify with ordinary antivirus software. To effectively find such viruses, antivirus software needs to have more complex algorithms available to help it identify distinctive patterns which can betray the presence of a virus even when the code behind the virus is not known to the software. Such software tends to be more expensive, reflecting the additional effort required during development and updates to make the software functional.

The first known polymorphic virus was developed in 1990, in the early days of the Internet, illustrating the fact that virus creators have always been ahead of the curve when it comes to developing malicious code. Polymorphic viruses operate with the assistance of an encryption engine which changes with each virus replication; this keeps the encrypted virus functional, while still hiding the polymorphic virus from the computer it infects and allowing the virus to slip through security systems which are designed to prevent malicious code from entering or exiting a network.

Essentially, the designers of polymorphic viruses have integrated a trait associated with viruses which infect humans into the design of their software, designed to infect computers. Human viruses are infamous for being able to mutate rapidly to avoid detection and prevent the buildup of immunities, and when a computer virus has a similar trait, the results can be unpleasant for computer users. It can be difficult to mount an adequate defense against a polymorphic virus, even with excellent antivirus software which has been designed to attempt to detect such viruses.

Polymorphic viruses can operate in different ways. Some mutate with each infection, making the virus extremely difficult to track. Others change with each generation. The speed of mutation is also highly variable. Some viruses mutate more slowly, which can make it easier to catch them, while others change very quickly. All of these variations, as a whole, make polymorphic viruses very diverse, which adds to the challenge of pinning them down.

Infection with a polymorphic computer virus can be a serious problem. While all computer viruses are designed to remain undetected for as long as possible, so that they can exact the maximum damage and increase their chances of infecting other computers, a polymorphic virus can linger undetected even on a system with antivirus software in place. People may also be lulled into thinking that their system is clean because they have such software and they update it regularly.

source: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-polymorphic-virus.htm

A boot sector virus is a computer virus which infects the boot sector on hard disks, floppy disks, and theoretically also other bootable media such as CD’s and DVD’s.

A boot sector virus does not need to be able to successfully boot the victims computer to infect it. Because of this, even non-bootable media can spread a boot sector virus.

Once the infected computer successfully boots, the boot sector virus stays in memory and infects floppies and other media when they are written to by the infected computer.

Boot sector viruses have become increasingly less common as floppy disks have become rarer.

source: http://www.topbits.com/boot-sector-virus.html

A stealth virus is one that, while “active”, hides the modifications it
has made to files or boot records. This is usually achieved by
monitoring the system functions used to read files or sectors from
storage media and forging the results of calls to such functions. This
means programs that try to read infected files or sectors see the
original, uninfected form instead of the actual, infected form. Thus
the virus’s modifications may go undetected by antivirus programs.
However, in order to do this, the virus must be resident in memory when
the antivirus program is executed and *this* may be detected by an
antivirus program.

Example: The very first DOS virus, Brain, a boot-sector infector,monitors physical disk I/O and re-directs any attempt to read a Brain-infected boot sector to the disk area where the original boot sector is stored. The next viruses to use this technique were the file infectors Number of the Beast and Frodo (aka 4096, 4K).

Countermeasures: A “clean” system is needed so that no virus is present to distort the results of system status checks. Thus the system should be started from a trusted, clean, bootable discs before any virus-checking is attempted; this is “The Golden Rule of the Trade.”

source: http://stason.org/TULARC/security/computer-virus-l/14-What-is-a-stealth-virus-Computer-virus.html