| First for the Bad News: | | | | HTML-based emails with hidden image tags, etc., etc. |
| There are many risks attached to connecting to the | | | | But, enough of the bad news... |
| Internet. The only way to keep one hundred percent | | | | Now for the Good News: |
| safe is by not connecting! But who wants to do that | | | | You can protect yourself. And you can check out |
| especially if one's in business? | | | | your computer for vulnerability levels. |
| It is a fact that when you connect to the Internet | | | | All you need is to spend some time getting familiar |
| you will be wide open to attacks. In essence you | | | | with what the weaknesses are and how you can |
| open up a highway that connects you to it and it to | | | | protect your computer against them. |
| you. Thus anyone on the Net can come directly to | | | | For a non-technical person like myself, what that |
| your computer. | | | | means is of course researching and getting |
| With some trickery and exploitation of the trade, | | | | information from people who do know what they're |
| vulnerabilities that exist in Microsoft Windows can let | | | | talking about. And that's the hard part: to come |
| outsiders access your data and cause havoc right in | | | | across someone you can trust. |
| the privacy of your own computer. | | | | That's what I did. And I was blessed to come across |
| Such malicious things as viruses, worms and Trojan | | | | a product that tells and shows how to keep hackers, |
| horses are rapidly increasing and rendering millions of | | | | worms and other germs out of your PC, and how to |
| computers easy prey to hackers looking for credit | | | | set up a high level of security against unwanted |
| card information, banking passwords and other | | | | invasions. |
| personal identifications, or to blatant vandals looking | | | | What I did learn in the first instance is that you can |
| to delete files, trash hard drives and do any damage | | | | go to a web site that will give you free tools to test |
| they can - just for the fun of it. | | | | your computer. That's the first thing you need to do. |
| The scary thing is that many of these invaders don't | | | | Well, to my surprise, I found that my security |
| even leave a trace. You don't even know they're | | | | system was pretty good. So that gave me peace of |
| there or they've come to your station! | | | | mind. |
| For your computer to be "attacked", intruders first | | | | And I found that the reason for this was that I had |
| need to locate your IP address. Using some | | | | both a router box and an anti-virus product installed. |
| specialized software programs - readily available on | | | | Each has certain protective characteristics that |
| the Web -- they can scan and find and invade your | | | | together make your computer safer. |
| computer. | | | | And with my continuous research, I'm also finding |
| Hackers can get to your computer through a variety | | | | other areas for improvement that keep adding to my |
| of ways, including eMail, chat/messaging services, | | | | arsenal of knowledge. |