How to avoid malware and spyware
Avoiding malware and spyware online is getting harder, its becoming more and more common and a lot of the time people get infected without even knowing.
The problem is most people are not very clued up when it comes to internet security, some people will browse the web on an old web browser (Internet explorer 6 for example) and no anti virus, this alone is a very dangerous combination as IE6 is vulnerable to all kinds of exploits and without any anti virus protection you could be a victim to a 'drive-by' web exploit.
Drive-By exploits - A drive-by exploit is when a malicious website is setup that attempts to automatically install malware or spyware once a user visits it. Users are often lured to the site through malicious links in emails or various other advertising techniques whereby a user thinks the page contains something of real value. These exploits are normally '0-day' which means that have been recently discovered by hackers and most the time will not have any kind of fix for them, because of this the success rate for infection is normally quite high. With a drive-by exploit unless your Anti virus manages to stop it you will have no idea what has happened and malware will be silently installed onto your machine.
With this is mind then its important to always use an up to date browser (personally I recommend firefox) and an up to date anti virus. It also wont hurt to use a malware scanning tool such as MalwareBytes AntiMalware to do a weekly scan of your system to make sure your not infected.
Remember that no anti virus / anti malware software will ever offer 100% protection, new threats are constantly being created and it can take time for anti virus vendors to find these and add them to their detection lists. This is why it is important to excercise caution whilst online; never visit any suspicious links and always be careful with what your downloading!
Importance of Wireless Security
Many people enjoy the flexibility of a wireless network and love the fact they can sit in their garden with their laptop and check their email. Whilst wireless networking is indeed a very useful technology it does come with its downsides. The truth is many people are not particularly tech savvy and will setup their wireless networking without implementing any wireless security, the same group of people are totally unaware of the massive threat to private data and their internet connections that arise from the no wireless security.Having an unsecure network is like allowing someone to come into your house, plug a network cable into your router and start browsing the web as they please, you just wouldnt do it! Which is why you shouldnt leave a wireless network unsecure, it is inviting people to connect to it and do any of the following:
1: Download illegal content.
2: Use the connection for malicious activity
3: Intercept local traffic and have the ability to check what sites your visiting, your private data and even passwords.
This is just the beginning. There are many horror stories of peoples wireless networks being used and abused with criminal activities happening leaving the owner of the network responsible!
This is why wireless security is so important, if you leave your network open then your just asking for trouble, and you wont even know its happening! People can access your network from several houses down the street and you would be none the wiser.
So always implement Wireless Security, make sure that you are using a wireless key, preferably WPA or WPA2 as WEP is extremely vulnerable and can be cracked in a few minutes with freely available tools from the internet.