Install and use an anti-malware tool

If you managed to read the four previous articles and, what is more important, you followed the proposed security measures, then you are among a minority enjoying a reasonably secure PC at home with:

- An updated and patched operating system
- A running and updated antivirus program
- An active personal firewall installed

This new report explains in brief what spyware, adware and malware are and how to protect yourself against them. Your PC could become infected by one of them while browsing the internet.

Wikipedia defines spyware in simple terms as “a type of program that watches what users do with their computers and then sends that information over the internet”.

A typical example is a keylogger, a very simple piece of code that could take up residence on your PC without your knowledge. It records all keystrokes made on your keyboard (including your passwords) and sends a report via the internet.

Adware refers to software with a tracking feature. If it acts on a PC without the consent of the user, then it is an example of spyware. Finally, malware is the general term used for any piece of software designed to perform a usually damaging action on a PC without the owner’s informed consent.

There are several useful (and free for private use) tools that you can use to detect the presence of malware on your PC, including:

- Ad-Aware from Lavasoft (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/)
- Spybot (search for it on http://www.download.com/)

Both security packages offer different scanning modes. Download one of them (or both, they are compatible) and install it (it is a matter of a few clicks).

Once installed, let them scan your whole file system at regular intervals (e.g. every week) at a time when you are not actively using your PC, and check their results. Scanning results will normally show lots of “tracking” cookies stored by your browser on your PC. A cookie is a piece of information that a website leaves in your browser to customise your access in multiple ways e.g. your preferred section, background colour or operation. However, some tracking cookies are installed by third parties, such as advertisers, to monitor which websites you visit. You can select them and delete them. Known pieces of malware will also be detected with these tools.

Finally, don’t forget to update these tools. Both tools have a simple update mechanism in their menus.

Keep your data available: Make backup copies regularly

The fifth security recommendation to protect your home PC is simple: get all your valuable data stored in your computer and make a copy in another media (e.g. in writable optical disks or USB memory drives) to have them available in case your hard disk stops working unexpectedly.

Using your PC at home, you will soon start storing data on your hard disk. A remarkable subset of these data, if not all, is surely important to you and its sudden disappearance could mean that you have to spend a lot of time recovering or re-creating them if that is at all possible (e.g. photos, music files, spreadsheets, etc.).

There is a simple measure to prevent you from losing data even if your hard disk crashes or simply, your PC (or laptop) is stolen: make a backup copy of your valuable data. And make it regularly.

Nowadays, it is easy to get different data storage media with lots of available space for your copies. Three examples of storage media are writable CDs, DVDs and USB memory drives. It is possible to store around 600 MB in a writable CD. A writable DVD is the equivalent of more than 6 CDs. A typical USB memory drive has a similar capacity as one or several CDs.

Before copying your data, you need to know where they are stored in your PC. Try to store your data in an easy-to-find folder e.g. place all your data hanging from a folder named ‘mydata’ or even in a different drive (e.g. in Windows, typically the operating system is in the C drive, then try to place your data in a different drive e.g. D if possible, use a different hard disk). This way, if you need to re-install the operating system, you will still find your data files.

There are many ways to copy files e.g. just drag and drop them using a file explorer. If your data is confidential, then encrypt them before copying them into a new media. This way, if you lose the CD or the USB drive, then the individual who finds it will not access the content easily.

An easy way to encrypt files and folders is ticking the ‘256-Bit AES encryption’ option present when selecting ‘encrypt added files’ in Winzip. With this option, you achieve an (almost) similar protection than the hardware-based encryption present in the secure USB drives.

Just an important detail, do not forget your encryption password!

And this is it, as proposed in the very first article, now you can have a reasonably secure PC at home with:

- An updated and patched operating system.
- A running and updated antivirus program.
- An active personal firewall installed.
- An anti-malware or anti-adware software installed.
- And available backup copies of your data.

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