Stay Safe When Visiting Social Networking Sites
As you increasingly know most spyware infections happen when unsuspecting victims open e-mail attachments or visit attack sites which force feed this type of infectious software into your computer without you even knowing about it. In a moment we will look at ways you can minimise the likelihood of a virus attack, but first let’s look at some more facts.
Most customers have taken precautionary measures by adding anti-viral software and merely opening e-mail attachments after they have been accurately scanned for viruses. These basic steps are adequate to protect your PC from the bulk of possible threats that flood the Web every day, but with the escalating popularity of social networking sites like Twitter, new attacks to your computer’s security have emerged.
Social networking web sites like Twitter are habitually constructed around networks of friends or business acquaintances but as more and more computer users tweet and re-tweet your list of acquaintances increases exponentially in a small space of time. Many computer users have their guard down when it comes to re-tweeting and clicking on links in their wall, and this has been capitalised on by malicious hackers who exploit the trust and spread their viral attacks without warning.
So, what can you do about this? Here are a few tips.
1. Look upon all links as potentially unsafe. Just because it looks as though your companion has posted something to your wall does not make it genuine. Make sure the context is proper and that it sounds like something a friend of yours would say. If you are in doubt contact them through another route to check it out. 2. Don’t rely on Twitter. Twitter states that it stands all content for malware; this does not mean that they can eliminate every suspicious event. The shortened or URLs used on twitter can be easily redirected to malicious sites and Twitter cannot protect you against this. 3. Keep your browser up-to-date. By using an up-to-date browser you are assured that the necessary security patches have been installed. These patches provide you added protection on social bookmarking sites. 4. Install anti-spyware security. Using the best antispyware maximises your protection so you should make sure that updates are installed automatically. Also ensure that you run a thorough spyware scan. Most software producers recommend this course of action and updates will occur at least every day. 5. Keep your software up-to-date. Reader software like Adobe and Adobe flash are commonly used to interpret data from various websites. Malware producers try to prompt users to download updates and in doing so unleash worms and Trojans that can potentially destroy your PC. Never download updates in this way. Always keep your product is up-to-date by downloading directly from the software producers sites. 6. Keep Windows up-to-date. As you probably know, Windows produces updates on a regular basis and most of these are to update the security of the operating system. Make sure your Windows updates are automatically updated. 7. Do not trust the social network e-mails. On no account assume that an e-mail from Twitter or Facebook or any other social network site are safe. Hackers use complicated spoofing methods to mask their true intent and links enclosed in these e-mails are possibly lethal. Always go to the social network site itself to ensure whether the content of the e-mail is legitimate.
Although all this may seem to be a issue of common sense, if you have ever had to make use of a data recovery service to bring your computer system back up to speed, you will appreciate that prevention is far better than cure.
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