Minimum Safe PC
It is most unfortunate fact that a strong defensive shield of security applications is no longer an option when connecting to the Internet. It is essential !!!
We believe that a minimum acceptable level of security can be achieved by following our Four Pillars of Internet Security, which are:
- An effective firewall.
- An antivirus application.
- Strong Anti-spyware tools.
- Regular updates of all security related software.
If you accomplish all this, you will have created the Minimum Safe PC.
But this is the minimum. It is just the bare essentials. There certainly is a lot more that can and should be be done to further increase your security. But that depends a lot on your specific uses of the Internet, and your specific needs. For instance, you may wish to add anti-spam software, some data encryption, and some other specific security related tools. Most everybody should also have an effective backup plan that includes backups that are kept off-site.
So here, in more detail, is the Minimum Safe PC:
1) An effective firewall:
It has gotten so bad that it is very risky to connect any computer to the Internet without a firewall, even for a few minutes.
For dial-up, a software firewall will probably be sufficient.
For broadband, we recommend the use of both a software and a hardware firewall.
If you have XP with service pack 2, the built in firewall is acceptable. If you do nothing else, use this !
Some Internet security suites include a firewall. If you use one of these suites, definitely activate the firewall. But again, we also recommend using a router type hardware firewall in conjunction with any or the software firewalls.
We recommend Zone Alarm because it is a two-way firewall. It protects you against incoming threats and from threats that may have already slipped into your computer or that you may inadvertently infect your with by installing a program that appears to be safe. (For instance, most ‘file sharing’ programs install a lot of malware and spyware. Some freeware does also.)
You can get the free version of Zone Alarm by going to zonelabs.com. For extra features and protection we recommend Zone Alarm Professional, or the other upgrade versions. ZA Pro has much stronger email attachment protection and identify theft protection.
For the hardware firewall we recommend (at the minimum) a “NAT” (Network Address Translation) router, which acts as a basic hardware firewall. There are quite a number of these on the market. But we should note that we consider a basic NAT router to be inadequate by itself. Some serious attacks can go right around them, which is why you must also have a software firewall. Nonetheless, a basic NAT router is able to block most of the attacks, and this takes the load off the software firewall. It is much better if you router also includes basic packet inspection, or better yet, stateful packet inspection (SPI), in addition to NAT.
Please note that many DSL modems and possibly also some cable modems include a router. Check your documentation. (Clue: if you can connect multiple computers directly to your modem, it probably has a built in NAT router.)
With a little careful shopping a basic wired NAT router can be found for less than $35.
If you use wireless. It is extremely important to active all security functions, including WEP and MAC address filtering. Also please make sure that remote administration is turned off, and the default password is changed to something secure. And insure that every computer on your wireless network also has an effective firewall.
2) An antivirus application:
Such as AVG Antivirus from www.grisoft.com
Any antivirus program must be updated regularly (every few days) AVG Antivirus is highly regarded and efficient. We recently used AVG version 7 on a system and found 187 instances of virus infected files.
3) Anti-spyware tools:
We recommend using several complementary tools.
Fortunately these tools are free for personal use. They can be found via the following links.
Spybot was one of the first good antispyware programs, and it is still one of the best, particularly for it’s immunization function. We highly recommend using the scanning function, the immunization function, and the download protection. But with well many thousands of threats out there, Spybot can’t do it all.
Spyware Blaster specializes in preventing malicious active-x controls from running on your system by immunizing your system against them. It will protect you from over 3000 of these threats. The developer of Spybot strongly recommends also using Spyware Blaster. So do we.
Ad-AwareSE is a good compliment to Spybot. It does a good job of finding and removing spyware. My only comment is that is rates tracking cookies about the same a a Trojan Horse, and the tracking cookies are nowhere near as serious. That said, I’d dump them anyway.
This is a good tool. It is simple to use, but also has enough depth to please power most users. One its great benefit is real-time protection. If you do nothing else, use this one.
From the trenches:
It is not at all unusual to find hundreds of pieces of spyware on an unprotected or under protected system. Do not underestimate the threat these could be to your security and wellbeing. While some ‘only’ pitch targeted advertising, some are specifically designed to commit identity theft. We strongly recommend you remove it all.
Clearly, no one anti-spyware program removes everything. This is more understandable if you know that there are many tens of thousands of types of spyware and malware instances to be found in the wild.
No single antivirus program, or antispyware program, or Internet security suit that we know of adequately protects you from these threats.
4) Update all security related software:
On a regular basis, update all security related software. It is highly recommended that you set all your security related software to automatically update. This is especially important for antivirus software. But this is also very important for antispyware software. And it is very important for operating system software. Make it part of your regular routine to check for updates frequently.
And by frequently, we mean every day or two for anti-virus software. And every week or two for other security related software. Better yet, just configure all your security related software to do automatic updates, when that option is available..
If your system meets this minimum level of protection, you can be reasonably well assured that you can safely connect your computer to the Internet. Just remember that security is an ongoing process.
