Virus Protection
Conceptual Overview
Imagine
having contact with many human beings, getting certain level of connection with
every single one of them, every single day of your life. You can imagine that,
eventually, you will get sick if you don’t have some precautions (washing your
hands, getting your vaccines, keeping your distance, etc.).
When
computers interact with other computers, some of them can have a Computer
Virus, so they too can get infected, just like us! (sort of).
A Computer
Virus is software with malicious intent that replicates itself by modifying
other computer programs and inserting its own code. There are many methods in
which a computer can get a virus, and there are different Computer Viruses that
can have different negative effects on a computer, like accessing private information
(your credit card too!), corrupting data (say goodbye to the pictures of your
kids), spamming your e-mail contacts, or leaving your computer useless.
Available Methods
Some
methods that can help you clean your computer from Viruses, or just to protect
it against getting one are:
·
Keep
your software up to date
o
Sometimes
software has bugs that can be exploited by hackers, which could be used to
infect your computer.
·
Don’t
click/respond to strange emails
o
I’m
sorry to tell you, but the Wife of the President of Uganda isn’t contacting you
to give you 100 million dollars; you also didn’t win the Bill Gate’s foundation
for 50 billion dollars.
·
Use
an antivirus software
o
It’s
a program designed to detect and remove viruses from computers and other
threats.
·
Use
a Firewall
o
A
system designed to prevent unauthorize access to or from a private network.
·
Download
only from verified places
o
Maybe
restrain from downloading that movie from a webpage that has 10 different
download buttons.
Best Practices
The methods
mentioned above, help you protect or remove Viruses from your computer, but you
can also do other things to keep your computer away from viruses or to avoid
the damages of being infected by a virus:
·
Regularly
Back Up your computer
o
Imagine
being able to rewind to the day before you got sick, you could avoid doing the
things that got you sick in the first place.
·
Use
a Strong password
o
1234
or your dog’s name is not enough, you can use software that manages your
passwords and create a complex one harder to be hacked.
·
Use
an Ad-Blocker (or pop-up blocker)
o
Some
sites love filling your browser with pop-ups, these can lead to your computer
to having Virus, so why not avoid them all at once?
Further Reading
If you were
to have sex with a stranger, you would use protection. So why not have the same
precautions for your computer? If you’re interested in reading more about
computer viruses and how to stay safe, you can read the next material, or
search more on the topic on your own, just be careful!
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