Page 1 - INTRODUCTION
These pages give simple steps to follow to protect your computer from security threats.
There are two very good reasons for properly securing your PC:
a. You want to keep your personal data safe and your PC free from anything
that will cause it not to work properly.
b. If your PC is not secure, then there's a fair chance it's contributing to
the worldwide problem with Internet security.
Is your PC a zombie?
An unprotected PC is quite likely to have been compromised and be acting as a 'zombie' under someone else's
control. Zombies are created when a hacker uses a virus or worm to gain remote access to a computer and deposit
a piece of malicious code known as a 'bot'.
These bots instruct PCs to do everything from stealing passwords and sending out spam, to launching random
attacks on specific company servers. Estimates vary, but there are probably several hundred million zombie
PC's worldwide, with up to a few million of these within the UK.
Tests have shown that if you connect an unprotected Windows PC to the internet via broadband, within a
matter of minutes it will be infected with nasties of one sort or another - adware, spyware, viruses,
trojans and the like.
What to do about it
Properly securing your PC doesn't take a lot of knowledge or expertise.
Over the following pages we'll try to explain in plain English how to clean your PC and protect it
in future. We'll start by looking at how at risk your system is.
next - HOW AT RISK IS YOUR COMPUTER?
Page 3 - SECURING YOUR PC
Page 4 - CLEANING UP YOUR PC
Page 5 - DICTIONARY OF THREATS
Latest virus alerts and hoaxes from Sophos
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