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