Protecting your PC is never more important as it is today. Generations of new spywares that hide ithemselves very well within your system environment collecting details and controlling your PC as zombies can wreck havoc not only on your system but on the general internet.
Imagine how hackers are able to utilize the power of thousands of hacked PCs online to bring down servers across the internet. This is what we know as DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) Attack. DDoS attacks had brought many major sites to their knees for days and sometimes weeks. The most recent of such attack is the one on Estonia’s government, bringing down their banking and government services for several days.
The main root cause of DDoS attacks is those exploitable, unprotected computers connected to the internet which then hackers from thousands of kilometers away quietly control to attack other internet devices.
So we’re listing here few applications you can use on your Windows Operating System that will help protect and clean your computer from most known viruses/spywares:
1) Windows Defender: Tool developed by Microsoft and available for free to legally registered Windows machines. It provides protection against common spywares and exploits in the Windows OS. It can be downloaded for free from: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx
2) Google Pack: Offers multiple applications for productivity and security. The most important applications in the Google Pack are: Norton Security and Spyware Doctor Lite Edition. The Google Pack can be downloaded for free from: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx
3) Avast AntiVirus: Freely available for non-commercial use. The Avast anti-virus and anti-rootkit provides ultimate protection against harmful malwares. You can check Avast site for more info at: http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
4) AVG AntiVirus: Another freely available Antivirus for non-commercial use. It also contains an Anti-Spyware tool and can be downloaded for free from: http://free.grisoft.com/
5) Make sure your Windows OS is up to date: Check http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com for the latest Windows updates
6) Enable your Windows Firewall: This can typically be found on most Windows XP SP2 computers under your “Control Panel”. Windows Firewall will prevent unwanted connections from being made from or to your computer.
7) Internet Browser Protection: If you wish to protect someone using your computer from browsing malicious or inappropriate websites, we’d highly recommend you try Open DNS to minimize your network exposure to unwanted websites
The old saying goes: “Prevention is the best Protection” which still applys on the internet today. Just one last note, the more antivirus and antispyware applications you load on your Windows system, the slower your system will perform. In general, we wouldn’t recommend installing any of these applications on your Windows systems unless you have 512MB of RAM for Windows XP or 1GB of RAM for Windows VISTA.