Windows Security Tips

Over the past recent years security has become the major concern of the internet users. It is important to keep your home computer secure from the viruses, hackers, spyware and other security threats. These security tips are applied on the Windows based operating systems such as Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional and Windows 2003 Server. The general methods of securing your computer and network is keeping your operating system up-to-date, installing up-to-dated antivirus program, anti spyware program, applying security templates, restricting the access to computer server of unauthorized users and applying security patches Microsoft’s website.

The major threats to computer are viruses, spyware, accidental deletion of the files, information theft and unauthorized access. More and more malicious codes are being are written to develop the viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, malware and adware.

Applying local security policies on each computer in a network is a must and you can access the local security policies in the Administrative tools in the Window’s control panel or by simply running it secpol.msc or gpedit.msc. Remmeber that the key policies that should be enabled are audit login for the failed events, creating password policies and requiring Ctrl+Alt+del for login.

If you have made a shared folder in your computer to be accessed by the other users in network, make sure that you have set the permissions to access this folder to only the required users. If you haven’t secured the shared folder by restricting the permissions then your sensitive information can be leaked and your data can be deleted accidentally from the shared folder.

If your computer is directly connected to the internet through Dial up connection, DSL or cable net you need to protect your computer by connecting the hardware firewall and it is also a good idea to install and configure the software firewall as well. In Windows XP there is built in Firewall installed and you can turn it on and off by going to control panel and select “Network and Internet Connections”. You can also try Sygate personal firewall.

Another security measure is to identify the mysterious processes running at the backend with the operating system. These processes starts when the Windows startup. Identify the description and command line instructions for each process.

Bad or weak passwords are the most important causes of the security compromises. A password should never be a dictionary word. A password has less chance to be cracked if it has been changed regularly. Always use the combinations of the alphanumeric, symbols and spaces between words etc to make strong password.

Last but not the least security measure is to encrypting your important files so that they can’t be accessed and read by the unauthorized users.