The Twenty Minute Guide to PC Security: 20 Tips to Secure your Box

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The 20 Minute Guide to PC Security
20 Tips to secure your box, protect your email, avoid wireless problems, use safe passwords and more.

IT Security Editors on Feb 13th, 2007


The Twenty Minute Guide to PC Security: 20 Tips to Secure your Box

We've all seen the geek squad commercials on TV where some woman calls BestBuy, and within 5 minutes this friendly 18 year-old kid pulls up in a VW bug and works "miracles" by cleaning and securing her virus infested computer all within about 10 minutes.

For those of you that have tried to hire help to clean the malware out of your PC, however, you've likely found out what the commercial never mentions, that within a month you're right back where you started, with an infested and almost unusable computer.

With over 140,000 known computer viruses and 85,000,000 spam emails sent out each day, the likelihood of your PC coming into contact with malware such as virsues, worms, and spyware is almost guaranteed. And once your computer becomes infected with malware, simple tasks such as browsing the web can be very frustrating as your computer's speed is drastically decreased -- that is if you can still connect to the internet at all. Given the prevalence of malware, the only real long-term solution is preventing it from infecting your computer altogether, but how?

In this article we cover 20 of the most basic PC security steps, from installing essential safeguards to tailoring your own internet behavior, which will together help you dramatically reduce the odds of your computer being infected by malware. Thus, by implementing these 20 simple and straightforward steps you can dramatically decrease the chance you'll ever have to call up your local PC repair shop for a cleaning ever again.