Computer Security – what is it and why it’s important
Increasingly our lives revolve around our computer. Beyond the hard disk, ram and CPU is the information that we rely for our day to day lives. Irrespective of the price tag of the machine you use, more often than not the information contained in it is significantly more valuable. Given this it’s absolutely critical that people have an appreciation of computer security and all the facets associated with it.
The first line of defence for computer security threats is prevention. To do this you need a variety of mechanisms to ensure early detection of a potential threat and mechanisms to address that threat before it enters and damages your computer and the information on it. Firewalls are typically the first line of defence as they protect you from other computers connected to you through the network and the internet. But that’s not enough as threats appear beyond from just the network e.g. they can come through seemingly innocent emails and equally innocent websites. The level of sophistication of virus coders is such that you need an equally sophisticated mechanism to look out for them. The only real solution is antivirus software and firewall software from world class vendors like Symantec (Norton), McAfee and Trend Micro. Because these packages have frequent virus definition updates they are constantly prepared for the latest threats as they occur.
Virus Detection
Should a virus manage to enter your system, whether it be because you have an older version of software like antivirus 2008 or you may not have any software protection. Whatever the case you need to be able to find it before you can try to address it. Again like with prevention, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to identify that a security threat is resident in your machine as their purpose has evolved from just being a nuisance but much more sinister like lurking in the background monitoring the details you enter to capture sensitive information like logins, passwords and credit card numbers. For this antivirus software like Norton Antivirus 2009 is needed to properly detect a virus threat quickly and efficiently.
It’s pretty useless finding a computer security threat and not being able to remove it. To attempt to do this manually is incredibly difficult and should only be attempted by a professional as virus writers have a habit of embedding their code in system critical files which if changed incorrectly can permanently compromise the functioning of your machine. Good antivirus software like Norton 360 does the job for you as it understands these sensitivities and can get rid of whatever threat that’s found.