Computer Club

Web Site Security

Protection

Computer Club Web Site • You can access the Club’s web site at: scascc.wordpress.com

• The upper part of the ‘Home Page’ looks like this . . .

• Below this are details of the most current Computer Club news.

Information Pages • Let’s have a look at available features.

• Each heading represents a different set of features designed to provide guidance relating to various aspects of computer-usage. We’ll see what’s on each page and discuss how the details can help you.

Security Protection • There are basically four different types of “bug” that can get

into your computer and cause problems. (Note that the classification of these “bugs” is an inexact science and subject to various interpretations. We’ll concentrate on the sorts which are most likely to affect our particular machines unless we take measures to protect against them.)

• Each type requires its own software program to take care of it.

• We’ll examine each type and make recommendations of how best to guard against them.

Bugs – Type # 1 • The first type of bug is automatically catered-for by measures

which are built-in to your computer.

• These measures are programs called, “Firewalls”. Your computer’s Operating System has a firewall. So does the server used by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) through which you access the internet itself, your e-mail system, etc.

• Apart from the ability to temporarily disable your computer’s firewall occasionally to allow certain functions to occur, you have no control over it.

• In other words, you can virtually forget this particular type of bug, simply because it’s automatically catered-for.

Bugs – Type # 2 • The second type of bug is the type correctly referred-to as

“viruses”.

• We need an “anti-virus” program to eliminate this type.

• Of the many examples available, we recommend Microsoft’s own “Windows Defender” (“Microsoft Security Essentials”).

• It’s definitely NOT the best package available, but we feel that it’s adequate for our needs.

• It’s FREE!

• Norton, McAfee, Kaspersky, etc. also fall into this category. (More about those, later!)

Bugs – Type # 3 • If any individual type of bug can be regarded as being more

important than the others, this third type is that example.

• You may have heard of “Trojan Horses” or “Worms” when talking about bugs. These can do a lot of damage to your computer and can prove very difficult to get rid of once they become established inside your machine.

• This type is called “Malware” and the package we recommend to take care of it is “Malwarebytes”.

• Unfortunately, you have to pay a recurring, annual fee to use this software, but we consider it very good value for its cost.

Bugs – Type # 4 • The last type of bug we’re going to talk about is perhaps the

least-serious, but undoubtedly the most common.

• Normally, every time you switch-on your computer it is automatically connected (wirelessly?) to the internet. This immediately exposes the PC to other bugs which are downloaded from the internet into your machine without you knowing anything about it!

• This type is usually not dangerous in any way, except for the fact that they take-up space on your hard drive and can eventually slow-down everyday operations.

Bugs – Type # 4 (cont.)

• We consider the best software to cater for this type of intruder is manufactured by Uniblue and is called, “Powersuite”.

• The package is intuitive to use and very efficiently takes care of many different varieties of bug falling into this category, thus ensuring the continued smooth running of your machine.

Bugs – General Notes

• Some of the anti-virus programs mentioned before are now offering versions of their software which take care of some (or all) of the Malware-type of bug. However, several factors still make us hesitate to recommend their use: 1. They tend to be rather expensive;

2. They are very intensive in terms of computer usage as they use a lot of ‘processing cycles’, thus considerably slowing-down your machine;

3. They are designed for use primarily by large corporations which require the more sophisticated coverage they provide; and

4. Typical Sandycove Acres users simply do not require this degree of sophistication.

Bugs – General Notes (cont.)

• The term, “Malware” used to refer to only the one type of bug. However, more recently several additional types have become included under this heading; for example: • Web Protection;

• Anti-Exploit; and

• Ransomware.

• “Malwarebytes” covers all these types of bug.

• Don’t forget that (as mentioned before) you will need a separate entity to handle each of the types of bug we’ve been discussing.