Please share – 3 steps to make your computing in 2012 safer
Keep it safe in 2012!
Oh, the joy of New Year’s Resolutions. How many do you make? How many last more than a few days?
So, here are 3 resolutions you can make and easily keep, that could save you money and heartache over the years to come…
1) Passwords
We are constantly reminded (lectured) on having unique and secure passwords for everything online. But I know people struggle to have a different password for everything.
So, if I can at least encourage you to keep two passwords different from all the others, they are…
Your email password
If you use the same password for everything, whenever you register at any website you are giving away the access details to your entire online life. Even if you register at a safe website, if it gets hacked then your details are out in the open.
Keep your email password different to everything else, then it’s much harder for people to guess. Plus, if you need to reset passwords anywhere else, you need to know your email is secure to receive the updates.
Your online banking password
This one’s pretty obvious, after all, it’s where your money is kept!
2) Malware Protection
Whatever antivirus software you’ve got, it probably isn’t enough. To be fair, we hardly ever see PCs with a virus infection nowadays. Now it’s all about Trojans – programs designed to fool you into thinking they are something useful when they aren’t. They fool you so you give them permission to install, which is how they get past your normal security software.
Which is why all the PCs in the Dear Geek household are running Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Pro.
Apart from removing infections, which we rely on the free version for so many of our callouts, the full version provides constant protection, including blocking known ‘dodgy’ websites. The license fee is a one-off, not annual, payment of less than £20. Off you go, go and buy it now.
3) Backup
I go on about backup so often I think I’m turning into a parrot. But it is always worth repeating. Let’s give a real life example…
About a week before Christmas I was called out to a dropped laptop. The hard drive couldn’t be accessed. 9 times out of 10 I can hook the drive up to my kit and recover most or all of the data, but not this time.
So, with much gnashing of teeth, the drive was sent off to the recovery lab. They can recover the data 99 times out of 100, but charge £400+ to do so.
This was that one time out of 100 – the drive was beyond recovery. At least the customer had an external drive for their backups. It was safely tucked away in another room, in its original box. It’s original, unopened box. So, this client was to spend Christmas trying to recreate her entire business on her laptop.
Which is why we use, and recommend, Livedrive Online Backup from fmBackup – especially when it only costs £2 per month.
So, there you go…
3 simple steps to make your 2012 a much happier New Year. One free, two ridiculously cheap, all very easy.
Best wishes for a very prosperous New Year from your friends at Dear Geek, HDG and fairly marvellous.
x
Trade secret – protect your PC for pennies – RT to upset Norton et al!
Ok, this post is going to come across all a bit ‘word from our sponsors’ and, yes, the links in this post are affiliate links, I do get a little kickback. But I genuinely recommend this product, I buy it personally for all the PCs at Dear Geek Towers and to be honest, if everyone bought it then I’d get a lot fewer calls. That little kickback will offset a fraction of my lost income!
Want to know how to protect your PC for pennies?
My absolute favourite product for cleaning up PC infections is Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware (MBAM). The free version is brilliant, as it will do all your scanning and cleaning for you.
What’s even more amazing is that the paid for version is less than £20 per PC, not per year! If you keep your PC for at least three years, that means…
Great Malware protection for less than 2p a day!
The full version automatically updates and has a great active protection module. If MBAM spots that the website you’re on is trying to download something nasty, it will block it. I have seen it block sites frequently as I’m using my PC and I haven’t had even a hint of an infection since installing it.
How to get it
- Download and install MBAM – use this Ninite downloader to install it easily with the default options
- Go and buy your Malwarebytes’ Anti-malware activation code for less than £20
- Enter the code into the register section of MBAM and turn on the protection module.
MBAM is not a replacement for anti-virus
…but for many people, when combined with a free anti-virus package, is all they need to protect their PC. If you’re looking for a good, free anti-virus then I recommend Microsoft Security Essentials (Ninite downloader here) – it doesn’t slow down your PC as much as certain 3-letter-acronym anti-virus programs and is a rarity in the free protection world – it can be used legally for business as well as home PCs.
Free anti-virus? Yeah, but no but yeah but…
This morning our friends at the wonderful First Friday (networking and skills share) asked my opinion on this article at the Guardian: “Can you protect your computer for free?”
To which I replied “Yes…
Beware “Personal Antivirus”
Most virus or malware infections at the moment are introduced using “social engineering”. They do not install themselves without you knowing, they instead use tactics to encourage you to install them without realising.
One horrible example is “Personal Antivirus”. Recently, we have had a couple of calls where clients are being told that they have hundreds of infections on their PC. Each infection warning is more dire than the last – ‘this virus deletes files’, ‘this trojan steals credit card numbers’, ‘this virus eats your first-born’…