It is at the beginning of this journey that you should be thinking about computer safety when you go online. The last thing you need is to be distracted by malware that compromises your data or ruins your reputation. There are viruses that can destroy all your information and others that can hijack your email address and send out spam to everyone on your email list.
How do you stay safe on your entrepreneurial journey?
Here are 3 tips:
1. Protect your mobile information from theft or loss.
In your student days, you will probably be using mobile computers a great deal as you shuttle to classes and share information with professors and colleagues. In other words, you will be inputting data or sharing data from your Google Chromebook, notebook, and laptop. You might also use a smartphone or tablet.
How do you keep your entire information database safe, particularly if there is any personal information on there that could be used for identity theft if the information was stolen?
The answer is rather simple: use an encrypted USB flash drive. It works well with almost all operating systems—Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome to name a few. Moreover it has high transfer rates of 4.8 Gbps and uses military grade encryption, referred to as XTS-AES 256-bit. You can find more information on its security features as well as instructions on the steps you have to take to encrypt your data on SecureUSB.com.
2. Protect your computers and devices with security software.
At a bare minimum, all your computers and devices should have three things: antivirus software, antispy software, and firewall software.
You can purchase standalone programs that have all three types of software programs available as boxed software or downloadable software from a variety of vendors. If you buy a new computer, the security software will come with this preinstalled software. However, this is only a trial subscription, and you will need to pay a subscription fee to keep your software up-to-date.
If you can afford it, you should not try to economize when it comes to getting security software. While free or low-cost standalone software will give you some protection and preinstalled software will give you temporary protection, it’s better to buy a comprehensive security software suite. This will give you everything you need to stay safe, including continuous updates on the latest virus definitions. Most come with multiple licenses, so you need only buy one piece of software that you can use to protect different computers you own, like your desktop, laptop, and smartphone.
Let’s take a closer look at these three types of software in your security software bundle so that you have a deeper appreciation why these are important in the fight against malware.
1. Antivirus Software. This protects you from viruses, worms, Trojan Horses, and a wide variety of other malware can destroy your data. However, destroying all your data is only the worst case scenario. Malware can also slow down a computer, create crashes for no apparent reason, and even give spammers access to your personal email account and begin sending out emails through it. An anti-virus software prevents all this mayhem from occurring in the first place. It scans your computer’s hard drive as well as alerts you if there are any incoming emails with viruses. If it finds any viruses from any source, it quarantines it to keep your computer safe.
2. Antispyware Software. Spyware installs itself on your computer without your permission. It tracks either your keystrokes or your web surfing habits and serves a variety of irritating pop-up ads.
3. Firewall Software. This is more proactive then antivirus and antispyware. While these two types of defenses identify and delete viruses and spyware, a firewall puts up a wall that prevents malware from accessing your computer in the first place.
3. Always keep all your software up-to-date.
Malware is constantly being created, and there is an ongoing war between hackers who create malware and software security engineers who create anti-malware software. As soon as a new defense is created to effectively prevent a new type of malware, hackers create a new type. You have a part to play in all of this by updating all the latest security software updates that you receive. Often this may take up more of your time than you are willing, and the best way to stay up-to-date is to set your security software to automatically update all incoming upgrades.
In addition, you should also update your other software, too, even if it is not security software. If, for instance, you are using a zip file utility and get a notice to upgrade it, it’s not always because the manufacturers have improved the functionality. Sometimes they are just closing a glitch in their code that makes the software vulnerable to a new type of targeted malware.