The one question asked most often by people these days may very well be “How to protect my computer?” People of all ages spend more time on the computer than not these days, which makes computer security-and, in particular, learning how to prevent computer viruses-an issue of paramount importance. Following these 10 tips will dramatically improve your computer security and leave you less likely to ask “How to protect my computer?” after you’ve suffered a breach!

1.) Buy and install anti-virus software: This is the one computer security measure everyone can implement easily and quickly. Simply put, the first thing you should do upon buying a new computer is add the anti-virus software. It won’t completely secure the computer, but a computer without anti-virus software is unsafe.

2.) Buy and install anti-spyware software: Spyware is software that is installed on your computer, without your knowledge, that allows outsiders to get a glimpse at your computer activities. Spyware is usually more annoying than damaging-if you’ve been subjected to pop-up ads, you’re probably a victim of spyware-but still, buying and installing the anti-spyware software will cut out that aggravation and allow your computer to run in a smoother fashion.

3.) Password protect your home and/or office wireless router. If you fail to do so, hackers can worm their way on to your wireless and steal valuable personal information from your computers. This has the added benefit of improving the performance of your wireless Internet: Your signal will be stronger without people in nearby homes and offices stealing it.

4.) Shut off your computer when you’re not using it. Many people like leaving their computers on 24/7 so that they can easily resume work after waking up or returning home. But whenever a computer is on, it is vulnerable to attacks from hackers. A computer that is shut off cannot be infiltrated by the bad guys!

5.) Be careful downloading email attachments. This qualifies as an “old-fashioned” computer security recommendation, but it’s still relevant. Someone from work sent you a Word doc? You’re probably OK. A spammer sent you an attachment in a bizarrely worded email? Delete, delete, delete! Also be careful with an email attachment that has been forwarded to you by someone else. There’s always the chance that the attachment picked up some malicious code at some point.

6.) Change up your passwords. A simple Google search will reveal common passwords you should avoid using. Also make sure your passwords aren’t obvious and predictable to those who know you-in other words don’t make your passwords the names of your children and don’t include the digits of your birthday or anniversary. Try, whenever possible, to have different passwords for every site, and keep a written document of your passwords in a safe spot.

7.) Regularly back up important data. This falls under the heading of “you can never be too safe.” If, despite all your efforts, something should go terribly wrong and a virus or a hacker renders your computer unusable, at least you won’t lose your vital files.

8.) Update all your software, from your Internet browser to essentials such as Word and Adobe Reader. These updates come with valuable patches that address any security issues that have cropped up since the software was released.

9.) When making purchases on the Internet, only buy from “secured” websites. Failing to do so leaves you vulnerable to identity theft. You can find information about a website’s security level at the bottom of the page.

10.) Be vigilant! The most pivotal part of computer security is asking yourself, every single day, “how to protect my computer?” Daily maintenance of your computer is the best way to keep it safe and operating at peak efficiency!

Carlos Wardlow has provided consulting services to companies ranging from Fortune 500 to small businesses in the NY/NJ Metropolitan and Central New Jersey areas since 1999. CNK Technical Solutions is dedicated to help leverage technology to make your business as efficient as possible.

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The most one most important part of any IT system is the security in place to protect it. After all, what good is a state of the art network infrastructure if it is vulnerable to hackers, viruses or who knows what else? Unfortunately, there are many companies all over the world who have found out the answer to this question the hard way, and we aren’t just talking about small local companies!

As this is being written in November 2011, Microsoft has recently been forced to deny that its Xbox Live system has been hacked, and to say that it is just phishing scams responsible for users of the platform finding fraudulent transactions being made from their account. The Sun newspaper in the UK insists they have been hacked. If true it would be highly embarrassing for such a large global corporation to have holes in their security system

2011 was a bad year for the big gaming console giants, as in April 2011 Sony’s Playstation Network was hacked, leading to 77million account details including password and credit card details being stolen. They had to switch it all off for a few days when fixing the problem, and a lot of people have not gone back due not trusting Sony to prevent it happening again.

In one of the most costly security breaches ever, payment processing company Heartland Payment Services was hit in 2009, during which vast amounts of credit card details were stolen due to malicious software being placed on a network. For a company that processes 100million transactions per month, it is very bad that it took a massive event such as this to make them re-invest in the most state of the art IT security systems.

Similarly, in 2007 T.J. Maxx security breach cost them in the region of a reported $118million in that year, and was expected to rise into the Billions. Millions of credit card details were stolen on their systems and in total it was estimated that in the end it may have cost them $100 for each record stolen.

Now for a large multi-national or global corporation, losses such as those reported in the cases above will have been painful but they have the resources to carry on. If this happened to a small to medium sized business the effects the effects could be catastrophic and could even lead to closure.

If you own a business you should consider investing in managed security services. Part of this will be to implement disaster recovery systems for such events.

A high level view of BCP

Business Continuity Planning is the consideration and creation of a set of instructions and plans to be employed by company staff in the event of business failure. It is very important to note that BCP doesn’t only deal with the complete loss of building or site, for example a fire but would also deal with single failure elements, for example the loss of the accounts dept thanks to a gas leak and even the loss of a business group, a lottery syndicate winning the lottery may have a massive detrimental effect on an enterprise.

BCP also incorporates the disaster recovery plan DRP which in its own right will have to be created to address the recovery of IT assets to the point of business function.

A handy way to view both the BCP and DRP are as health checks for each element of the business. The making of these 2 plans requires important thought and planning and will need each business unit to be absolutely clear about what they do day to day and what IT support and functions they need to carry out any and all their functions.

One of your primary jobs will be to decide on a BCP co-ordinator. This individual will be responsible for meeting all the department heads, gaining a understanding of their requirements. This is going to be done over the course of a bunch of conferences (at least two) with the 1st meeting being used to pose questions that the unit managers can then answer in successive meetings. The creation of a BCP plan must be a group effort allowing all business entities to provide their feedback and extraordinarily significantly to feel a bit like part of the process. The function of making a BCP and Dr plan will mostly require a serious amount of change. Employees are often extremely resistant to change and getting them to instigate change to better support their roles is an excellent way to smooth this process.

Roy Castleman has worked in the City of London since 1996 in a consultative role in Business IT Supportboth from a management position and as a hands on engineer. He’s been involved in a number of disaster recoveryevents where it’s been necessary to recover a customer from a tragedy.