Top Four Ways to Ensure a Secure Password

If you use a computer or go online, you are going to need a password. You need a password to get into a computer, to go online or to enter a website. Many websites now require a password to enter. Without a doubt, creating and remembering various passwords are a pain. Managing your passwords safely may mean having to make up numerous arcane number and letter combinations, all according to each website’s required minimum or maximum character count. You may have to memorize or take many notes on what password belongs to what website. And when you’re done logging all your passwords with the corresponding websites – it’s time to change them again. Unfortunately, passwords are a necessary evil to keep your information private and secured.

Your password should be as least obvious as possible. For instance, you never want to use your name, or your spouse, child or dog’s name. These are too easy. If you like collecting pyramids don’t use pyramid as your password. If you are a wrestling fan, don’t create a password after a popular wrestler. And so on. You want to keep your passwords safe by not making them so obvious. Uncovered passwords are the easiest way for a hacker to break in to your online account and have their way with your account until you discover something’s wrong. Hackers are known for scouring the World Wide Web in search of finding passwords that match with dictionary listings and they also have perfected other tools to help find those easy passwords.

Most people find it very difficult to manage their passwords. During a recent online survey, Over fifty percent of online consumers report using a combination of numbers and letters in their passwords while many of them admitted to using the name of pet or a person; 40% report keeping their passwords written down in notebooks or post it’s, where they can be easily viewed, lost or stolen; 34% report they have never changed their passwords; And 27% of these passwords users describe themselves as PC professionals.

Appropriate password management will never be easy, but you can at least simplify it. Prevention is the key. If you can prevent your password from being discovered, you are protecting yourself and your personal and financial information from hackers. Here are the top four ways to insure a secure password:

1. Trick your memory into creating better passwords. You can start with the title of a movie you saw recently or a favorite book. You can take the first letter of each title word and add a meaningful number at the beginning, middle, or end, such as your golden birthday or the year you started school. Each time you update your password, you can use a different movie, book and year. For your minor online accounts such as movie sites, news sites and other websites that don’t have your personal or financial information, you may choose a combination of initials and a month or year you graduated from high school, such as RWS061993 for the Herald News. For the more critical website passwords, such as your banking and credit card accounts, make the password as difficult as possible, perhaps by using a series of letters and numbers, like 10rT31w05s. The password can also become more difficult to create or remember if the website is case sensitive.

2. Never use the same password with every website or for all of your transactions. Although this only makes for one password to remember, once your password is figured out, the hacker can get into all of your accounts. Hackers can cause a lot of damage before they are discovered and this is what you want to prevent.

3. Try a password management tool to help reduce the hassle of managing your passwords. If you decide to use a password management tool, find one that will encrypt and store all of your data on your PC, such as Siber System or Roman Labs. Be careful if you are allowing Windows to store your passwords, especially if the PC is shared by other people. Multiple users can put your passwords at risk.

4. Change all of your critical website passwords often, usually every 3 months or so. For the minor online websites, or those without your personal or financial information, you should change those at least once or twice a year.

Spyware is basically malicious programs that often send personal data, passwords and other private personal and financial data to third parties

Is adware and spyware different?

Adware is a form of spyware that monitors viewers’ surfing habits and sends the data to advertisers who use it to create their popup ads. Spyware is a kind of adware that steals and  reports private personal and financial information.

Where does it come from?

It’s often packaged with  many free games, peer-to-peer file exchanges, in spoofed emails,  and other free downloadables. 

Are pop-ups a part of adware?

A lot of adware and spyware programs create pop-up ads in your browser window.
If you are bothered by a lot of these ads, it  usually means adware has gotten into your computer system.

Is there Good Adware?

Some of it doesn’t do much more than pop up annoying ads. The most evil kind of spyware gathers personal data about you and sends it to sources who may have malicious and criminal intent

How do I keep it from infecting my computer?

Install spy sweeping software. There are many excellent tools available for free trials. Try a few that are highly recommended and use the ones that do the best job for you.

90 Percent of PCs are infected with Spyware

View the original article here

Passing on these  hoax alarms can cause serious damage. As an example, in a large company with a private email network, virus hoaxes have caused whole e-mail systems to break down after dozens of users forwarded false alerts to everybody in their organization. End users should never forward virus alarms. Ever.

They are spread because it’s human nature to fear and react to threatening situations.

Virus hoax messages warn the reader of potential disaster and demand that the warning be forwarded to everyone the reader knows. This often results in the hoaxes spreading faster than many viruses.

Another serious problem with hoaxes is complacency. An individual, maybe already embarrassed once for naively believing in a hoax, is much less likely to accept a valid virus warning as being true. Thus, a valid warning is met with disbelief and apathy. In such a case, a hoax can be considered a potential precursor to disaster.

Most virus writers prey on this trait of human nature and use known hoaxes to their advantage by attaching a virus to their fraudulent hoax warnings. AOL4FREE began as a hoax virus warning. It was then  distributed with a destructive trojan attached to the original hoax virus warning!

The lesson learned, to repeat:  never forward virus alarms. Ever!

Next time you receive an urgent virus warning message, be sure to check the list of known virus hoaxes here at McAfee, at F-SECURE, or HERE at SOPHOS.

Do send a message to the person who sent you the hoax message. Tell him or her it’s a hoax. Say, “Don’t send it out to others.”

Generally, a hoax will have some combination of the following characteristics (but not necessarily all of them):

- It’s a warning message about a virus (or occasionally a Trojan)
spreading on the Internet.
 
- It’s usually from an individual, occasionally from a company, but
never from the cited source.
  
- It warns you not to read or download the supposed virus.
 
- It describes the virus as having fearsomely destructive powers
 and often the ability to send itself by e-mail.
 
- It usually has lots of words in all caps and loads of exclamation
marks.
 
- It urges you to alert everyone you know, and usually tells you this
more than once.
 
- It seeks credibility by citing some authoritative source as issuing
the warning. Usually the source says the virus is “bad” or has them
“worried.”
 
- It encourages  you to believe  the alert by describing the virus
in false technical terms.

     View the original article here

You could be inviting a virus into your computer.

It may sound a bit paranoid, but wouldn’t it be better to be a little paranoid than careless?

Everyday the threat of a new computer crippling virus becomes more real to people as they become victims. According to the International Computer Security Association (ICSA), which is an organization that monitors computer virus activity, over 20,000 computer virus strains are currently in circulation. The ICSA also assesses that at least 10 to 25 new viruses are detected everyday.

In a time of email and the internet, viruses are circulating even faster then before.

Now almost every program, document or file can carry a virus. The virus can come in the form of an email from an unknown source or from an unknowing friend or acquaintance. Not only can these viruses breech your security and make all your private information public, you can loose data and even crash your hard drive. This can cost you a small fortune to repair, or even replace your computer, and it could cost you valuable time.

Most computer owners have very important and sometimes even personal information stored on their computer and that would be a terrible thing to lose. Without the proper security, your computer is open to hackers and hijackers all over the world. Why take this risk when it can be easily avoided?

Avoid being hijacked at home – Follow these five steps to help protect your home PC:

1. Install a firewall.

If you own and operate a computer, you need a firewall. This is one of the best methods to help protect your computer from intruders. Firewalls are used to help prevent unauthorized users from gaining access to your computer.

They are very difficult for hackers to understand, thus a very good security measure. You can both purchase firewalls or find them for free through the internet. Regardless of whether you choose to purchase a firewall or obtain a free one, this is a very important security measure.

Make the best use of life by learning and reading as much as possible. read about things unknown, and more about things known, like about internet security.

2. Download anti-virus software.

This is definitely a must have. Anti-virus software is developed to scan your computer and search for viruses that can be infecting your computer.

This software will find all of the viruses or infected files and permanently delete them from your computer to restore your computers vitality. There is a large variety of anti-virus software manufacturers available from which to pick and choose. It would be best to choose the more popular brands such as Norton Anti-Virus, McAfee Virus Scan, Symantec Anti-Virus, etc.

3. Install any and all security patches.

When you receive an email from the vendor or merchant you had obtained your security software from, open it immediately. The email may contain vital information you need to help protect your computer. Once you receive an email stating you need to apply a security patch, you should do so immediately.

4. Update your software on a regular basis.

Make sure you have the latest security software installed in your computer. Some software has weekly or monthly updates that should be done as they are offered. New viruses are detected every day and therefore you need to keep your security software updated on a regular basis in order to stay ahead of those threats.

5. Never open any emails from people or places you don’t know and never download any attachments.

These emails can seem so innocent and friendly, but that’s exactly how they get you. A popular virus came from an email sent with the subject line “Someone wants to kiss you” when an unsuspecting user opens this email thinking it’s coming from a companion, they become infected with a virus that begins circulating through their entire computer system.

Never insert a disc into your computer if you don’t know what it is or who sent it. Last but not least, never download any software from a new website or any website that you don’t know.

Related articles

• Techniques to Protect Personal computers from Viruses and Spyware … (choose4me.com)
• How anti virus software is used to protect computer threats (wiki.answers.com)
• What is a computer virus and give examples anti virus software (wiki.answers.com)

Image by Zebra Pares via Flickr

Reviewed here are the best free windows antivirus software of year 2010. Download best antivirus software for your PC and protect it from various threats like viruses.

http://sharethewarez.com/10-best-free-windows-antivirus-software-of-year-2010.html

Related articles

• Top Antivirus Software for Windows 7 (brighthub.com)
• Rogue antivirus apps now masquerading as utility software, too (downloadsquad.switched.com)