Computer Security

Three Strikes and You're Out!

Baseball is big business. I don't follow the game much, but I do know a little about it. There are two teams, an umpire, and one team plays the field while the other team goes up to bat. Three strikes and you're out.

The computer world is also big business has two teams too. On one side there's businesspersons, gamers, casual surfers, and long distance friends and relatives. On the other side there are viruses, trojans, hackers, worms, spyware, adware, identity thieves and more. I'm sure you can guess which side we call the good guys and which side we call the bad guys. The bad guys really don't play fair. The bad guys are always sliding into base undetected, pretending to be a good guy, and even sitting on the same bench with you while trying to make your team lose the game.

Support.com has been regularly help computer users avoid three actions that I refer to as the "Three Strikes - You're Out!" of the computer and Internet world.

Strike One!

Regardless of your Internet connection these days, it's imperative that you install a good firewall to protect against hackers, worms that travel through ports instead of emails (like the Blaster and Welchia worms) and trojans.

Firewalls come in two flavors: hardware and software. If you are on a dialup connection, you have to use a software one. If you have an highspeed connection we strongly suggest you use a hardware firewall.

There are a few software firewalls recommended by the technicians of Support.com that are available in free versions, are ZoneAlarm by Zonelabs and Sygate Personal Firewall by Sygate.com. In their basic form do a good job keeping unwanted traffic out of your computer.

Hardware firewalls generally cone in the form of a Router or Internet Gateway. These devices interrupt the connection between your computer and the internet. Any computer placed on the other side of the router becomes invisible to attacks. This is the best kind of security that can be purchased by home users right now.

Side note: If you see a popup window that says, "Your IP is showing!!! You need our protection services!", don't pay attention. Your computer's IP address is how you are identified on the internet. It's impossible to be connected to the 'net without having it exposed. Please disregard advertising scams like this.

Strike Two!

It's like American Express, don't leave home without a good antivirus program. You can be as careful as you can - never opening attachments to emails that could be bad, never downloading software from unreliable places, generally being very safe and still something might slip through. Someone else may sit at your computer and do something unsafe or you have a momentary lapse and go to open an attachment that could infect your system. Without a good antivirus you have no protection against things that may try to sneak in.

We at Support.com have quite a few ways of keeping your computer safe from viruses. We even know some free software that you might want to use. Contact a technician from your account page on Support.com to get one of them to help you install and configure this software.

Strike Three!

There might be a really cool program that you want to try the demo for, or a free program that does something that you have been looking for for a very long time. Be very cautious about installing these kinds of software as these programs might come with hitchhikers that you really don't want running around your system. If you have recently installed a "free" program and you notice that you have new icons down near the clock that don't seem to do anything or your computer seems to be running a bit slower, it probably means that you have one of these hitchhikers.

Enter the Support.com technician. We're able to get this nasty software out of your system quickly and completely. This kind of software is making a mess out of just about everyone's computers at the moment. It's a really hassle for you to try and deal with your computer when this garbage software is lurking in your system. If you suspect that there may be more stuff going on in your computer than the software that you want to run, please give us a call, we'll make sure your computer is as clean as can be.

support.com is available to help protect your computer against the "bad guys".