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Two Steps Toward Computer Security
By Trevor Bauknight

So, you've heard enough horror stories about viruses, 
Trojan-horses, spyware and their cousins that can really make 
your Internet surfing a dismal experience. Confucius said:  "A 
journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," but the 
road to computer network security begins with two steps. Here 
are the two most important things you can do to keep from 
getting buried in this online garbage:

1) Keep Your Computer Up To Date. 
No matter if you use Windows, Mac or Linux, keeping software on 
your computer up-to-date is extremely important. Many viruses 
use known security bugs already discovered in software but not 
yet fixed or patched on individual computers. For example, the 
well-know "Blaster" virus (W32.Blaster.Worm), which attacked 
millions of computers all around the world, exploits something 
called the "DCOM RPC vulnerability" in some versions of Microsoft 
Windows. The Blaster virus didn't even rely on your e-mail 
program to propagate; but rather, it scanned the Internet for 
vulnerable computers and copied itself to the unpatched machines 
where it set up shop repeating the process, causing a tremendous 
disruption in overall Internet usage and untold headaches for 
owners of infected machines.

This vulnerability was discovered and patched by Microsoft *4 
weeks* before Blaster was created, but the virus was still able 
to wreak havoc because so many people failed, for whatever 
reason, to apply the necessary updates before its release. Not 
only did those people become victims, but the virus running wild 
on their commandeered computers went on to victimize countless 
others.

Now you know the importance of keeping your software up to date, 
the next question is how to do that. The answer is simple. In 
recent versions of Microsoft Windows there is an "Automatic 
Update" program which will handle the task for you. If you run 
Windows XP with Service Pack 2 on a computer with a connection 
that is "always on," you can set it to update your Windows 
automatically without even notifying you. You can set Automatic 
Update to do its work from the Control Panel.

Automatic Update takes care of security bugs like the one 
described above, which are the most important; but there are 
other updates for your Windows installation which you can apply 
by selecting the "Windows Update" option from the Start menu. 
This will launch Internet Explorer and take you directly to a 
Microsoft website from which you can install security updates 
and also optional recommended updates such as new versions of 
drivers for hardware devices such as your graphics card, for 
installed software like Windows Media Player and DirectX and to 
Office if you have that installed.

2) Trust No One.  
No, I am not advising you to be a paranoiac like Fox Mulder 
(X-files anyone?); but being a little paranoid while you're 
doing certain things via the Internet is a good habit to form. 
Most viruses spread through e-mail. You might have heard about 
the so-called "Love Letter" worm, which was carried by a nice 
e-mail message with a Subject header like "I love you." There 
are many malicious e-mail attacks like this one. Some of them 
pretend to be your ISP sending you new "account information" 
or Microsoft sending you updates attached (something Microsoft 
never, ever does). Some of them pretend to be your friend 
sending you a "new screen saver" or something like that.

All of these are a form of what is called "social engineering," 
a technique that relies on the reality that the human user is 
almost always the weakest link in the chain of computer security. 
The famous hacker Kevin Mitnick wrote a fantastic book about the 
subject, "The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of 
Security." Here is my own "better safe than sorry" strategy. DO 
NOT, under any circumstances, open any kind of attachment sent 
to your e-mail, even from a friend unless you expect something 
specific, and arrange that in advance.

Some viruses send fake header information, so even if e-mail 
"says" it is from someone you know and trust, that's not 
necessarily the case, so be very careful. I also highly recommend 
that you do business with a service provider such as cafeid.com, 
the one for whom I work, that offers server-side anti-virus 
protection on their e-mail servers, so that messages carrying 
virii will be detected and deleted even before they get to your 
computer. Another good measure is to use an e-mail provider that 
uses IMAP instead of POP3 for its e-mail servers. These enable 
you to view and delete messages on the server without ever 
downloading them to your local machine unless you want to.

If you are stuck with an ISP that doesn't have e-mail virus 
protection and/or use an IMAP-based mail server, there are 
third-party providers who provide these services at a low cost, 
or you can try using software like MagicMail 
(http://mmm3.sourceforge.net/) which enables you to review 
message headers directly on your ISP's POP3 mail server and 
remove suspicious ones before you download them.

These simple steps will drastically improve your computer 
network's "immune system" against Internet nasties. You should 
also install at least one of the excellent free spyware removal 
tools and a good anti-virus system and keep them up to date 
similarly to the way you keep your OS updated. Internet virii 
and spyware depend upon the poor practices of computer users for 
their lives, and the easiest way to begin taking back the 'Net 
from the malicious is to make sure you have the latest fixes 
installed and remain vigilant against possible attempts to 
manipulate you into defeating computer security through human 
intervention.

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Trevor Bauknight is a web designer and writer with over 15 years 
of experience on the Internet. He specializes in the creation 
and maintenance of business and personal identity online and can 
be reached at trevor@tryid.com. Stop by http://www.cafeid.com 
for a free tryout of the revolutionary SiteBuildingSystem and 
check out our Flash-based website and IMAP e-mail hosting 
solutions, complete with live support.
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