It's pretty common knowledge these days that you need to run some kind of antivirus protection on your computer. But it's not commonly known that the computers that make up the internet are also at risk. What's being done to protect them?
Virus attacks aren't limited to desktop PC's. The computer servers that operate websites, email and other internet services are also vulnerable.
Servers are usually substantially the same as PC's only with more memory, disk space and processors. Web servers house web pages and programs for Internet users, e-mail servers store, send and receive e-mail, and file and ftp servers make possible storage and distribution of all manner of files for other systems. Routers are simply specialized computers, with proprietary operating systems, for routing network traffic.
Because they really run the same kind of stuff as a desktop system, they're also vulnerable to attack and need to be protected with similar methods. They need to be running antivirus software and firewalls to avoid being infected.
What else can be done?
Since servers and routers provide services to multiple, sometimes thousands, of user systems they're more frequently attacked. Users can help administrators of these systems by keeping their own systems clean and refraining from passing on viruses to others across them. Administrators can help themselves by forgoing the temptation to use them as personal computers with full e-mail clients, word processing software, and fully enabled browsers.
When you keep your computer protect against online security threats, you're helping to minimize the target area for hackers. It's also necessary to keep your computer updated with the latest operating system and browser patches. You may even want to consider running a more secure web browser, such as Firefox, instead of Internet Explorer.
You should also avoid booting from CD's, DVD's or USB memory sticks that haven't been scanned for viruses. If one of the files that was saved on the disk was infected, booting with the disk can cause the virus to spread even faster.
If you use FTP, you should look into switching to a more secure system for file transfers. FTP passwords are sent "in the clear" - there is no encryption on them at all. So when you log into an FTP server, if someone is monitoring your internet traffic, they can easily get your password.
Users need to take responsibility for making sure a network is secure - not just the system administrators. System admins have many tasks on their plate and they're not always able to respond to security risks as quickly as they should.
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Is your PC as secure as it should be? Find out what you should be doing to keep it safe from spyware, viruses and other online security threats at the Online Security Toolkit website. Visit http://www.onlinesecuritytoolkit.com for more information.
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