Tips For Avoiding Malware
By Anna Johnson on August 16th, 2009Here are four tips you can follow to avoid falling victim to malicious software or ‘malware’ i.e. viruses, spyware, trojans, etc.
1. Check the address bar of any link sent to you via email and certainly don’t click on any link until you see what is displayed in the address bar.
Is the domain the same as that displayed in the email? Do you feel comfortable clicking on that link? If not, don’t click!
For example, if an email supposedly from PayPal displays something like this: paypal.com.cn you should know that it’s not really from PayPal!
2. If you don’t know what the official URL or web address is supposed to be, perform a search on your preferred search engine. The official site – along with its domain – should be listed there.
3. Never, ever automatically download anything. Especially anything that asks you to give it permission to download… when you weren’t planning to download it in the first place.
4. Never, ever download anything you have doubts about.
5. Don’t trust any old ‘security’ software either – cybercriminals have taken to hiding malware in anti-malware programs!
August 17th, 2009 at 9:56 am
I use a good quality internet security system and have it set to update every hour.These days computer security isn’t a joke.