PC Magazine made a survey that asked customers to rate their broadband ISP services. We found out that many users don’t actually understand the important and the dangerous of potential threats or attacks to how to protect their PCs. Of course, they are only Internet Providers, not an Computer IT expert or a Computer Scientist :-) . Nope, I am not IT specialist, so hey normal computer users, please read this :) . Finally, the following are the responses which we think that this is the TOP 5 security misconceptions we found.

1. I don’t have and I don’t keep important things on my PC, so I don’t think I have to worry about security.
Sometime we think that this can be true, but only partially. But that time has long since passed, this is 21th Century now. Today Viruses, Worms, Spywares and other threats, including the famous Virus “Love Bug”, “Nimda”, and “Blaster”, spread seriously and blindly across the Internet to thousands or millions of PCs in hours, without regard for who owns them, what is stored there, or the value of the information they hold or they kept. The purpose of the attacks is nothing less than to wreak havoc, you should take a response on it. If you ignore these kind of attacks or even worse you don’t know anything about it, you are certain to be hit at one time or another. Even if your computer is not attacked directly, it can be used as a zombie to launch a denial-of-service or something like that on a network. Your PC can also send spam or pornography to other PCs without being traced. Yes, Without a Trace. Therefore, your main responsibility is to protect your PC, protecting yourself is also protecting others so that other users are also protected.

2. I can protect my PC if I disconnect from the Internet or turn it off when I’m not using it.
It’s completely Wrong. It’s partially correct, again, but if you connect to the Internet one day, you again become a target. You could download a virus when you connect and not activate it until days later when you read your Email offline. Even if you not often connect to the Internet, but you can still infected by a virus from a file off of a network, like from: floppy disk, or USB flash memory drive.

3. I can protect myself from viruses by not opening suspicious Email attachments or even not ever open any suspicious strange emails
Ow, ow…It’s Wrong again. Your next virus you get can be come from your best friend’s or relative’ computer if their Email address book was used to propagate an attack. Nimda and other hybrid worms could enter through the Web browser. The viruses possible to activate themselves simply by reading or previewing an Email, we don’t know what the computer is working behind. So, you simply must have a PC-based antivirus software package that protect your Email.

4. I have a Macintosh or Linux based system like Ubuntu, not a Windows system, so I don’t have to worry about security or even being attacked
Oops, It is true that most attacks target on Microsoft Windows PCs system, but in fact, there have been attacks against Mac OS and Linux systems as well. Some experts have predicted that the Mac virus problem will get worse, it’s only because Mac OS X uses a version of Unix. And although these systems have some useful and an advance security features, they can still be attacked, so beware. Based on my experience, the changes to infected by Viruses if you are using Macintosh or Linux based system, it’s only around 5-10 Percents. Whereas 90% your system got infected by Virus is because of you are using Windows.

5. My system got an antivirus package installed, so I’m protected.
Not quite right. First, if you forgot to activate your Antivirus package to scan incoming traffic automatically, then you are not protected against Email and any Web browser attacks. Second, new threats appear daily or even worse it can appear new threats hourly, so an Antivirus package is only good when it got last updated. You should remember to always activate the auto update Antivirus Database features to stay on top of the latest threats. Third, an antivirus package impossible to protect you from every threat 100%. Why? Because, usually you need a combination of solutions, then antivirus, then you also need a personal firewall such as Zone Labs’ ZoneAlarm Pro, and also remember to keeping your operating system and your software installed up to date to the latest security patches. Antispyware utilities such as PepiMK Software’s SpyBot Search & Destory, or maybe Spyware Blaster and lastly Norton AntiSpam 2004 will also help keep you more safer.

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