Your PC Might Be Infected - Advices

The world of online privacy and threats has changed direction. In the past all that caused worries and concerns in online cyber world came from viruses created by some causing formatting your hard drive or hanging of your computer but this has changed dramatically. Now you are confronted with threats of tiny files and codes called spyware and malware and ad ware that are very small in size but with crushing effects such as learning about your identity, stealing your credit card numbers, residing in your systems for long times and others things. Have you ever thought how those sending you spam emails have learned about your email address? If you know some signs of infection you will be able to find a remedy for your system before it's too late. Examples: You are using dial up internet connection and you are not online, and suddenly the connection box appears and automatically without your command goes online. This behavior might has been caused by a spyware on your system that has logged your keystrokes and has made a file and now wants to communicate with the creator or the source infecting you. I already suppose you all have firewalls installed specially the world famous zone alarm. Now another example, if you are online and are not downloading anything nor are you browsing any sites but you can see the traffic sings on your zone alarm icon on the taskbar, this means a program or software on your PC is downloading or uploading something, so check your programs section of the firewall to see what program is doing so, of course not all programs communicating online are to cause worries, for example windows system from time to time contacts Microsoft website to learn if there is a new update but it's recommended that you check to see if only trustworthy programs are allowd to be online. Another case we can mention is when your windows automatically wants to restart or log off, especially if you have not recently installed a new software on your computer. Always keep your firewall and windows system and your internet explorer or your other browsers up to date. Please don't visit fishy websites such as hackers websites and forums as much as you can. Also take care about what you are downloading from unknown sources such as p2p softwares. Don't forget to have your firewall running while downloading files from such sources. Try using as many anti spyware and virus programs as you can, and check for the latest security softwares at www.download.com Never leave your computer online if you are active in any chat rooms, some might learn about your position and IP and later on will attack your computer through some methods that you would have never thought. Online shopping is now an indispensable part of our lives and you enter your credit card numbers on various sites everyday, exercise this practice of scanning your whole system before and after each online transaction to minimize the risk of infection and revealing your financial secrets to strangers. Always check the URL the site you want to enter your personal info on to be the real one you indented to use, pay attention to the letters of the domain name and the URL be he real one. Check your favorites list everyday, if you see some websites that are listed but sound unfamiliar to you, delete them and scan your computer. Try not using your web based email addresses for critical correspondences, instead use a safer email address from a company that you can use with your mail client like outlook, the reason is when you lose your web based email address due to your password getting stolen by someone, from that moment onward that email address is his and you cannot take it back, but even if you lose your password of client based email address, you can easily contact the email provider and change your password. If you visit a website and during your visiting a blank pop up window appears with nothing on it, it strongly is a malware loaded onto your computer, so in such case, immediately disconnect from the internet and make a full system scan. And never ever write your passwords or financial information in a text file on your computer, for these reasons, use the good old pen and paper.