1. Robert Wayman CIS 1020-054 Internet Class
Chapter 9 Digital Lifestyle: Protecting Digital Data and Devices
Welcome to the digital age the most exciting time with the easy access to the internet but is it a
safe place to be with all the cybercrimes taking place. Criminals are hacking into computers to steal
identities and personal info. Every day there are new viruses being made or changed and sent out to
other computers. Some do little more than steal info while others can completely destroy your
computer.
So what are computer viruses? A virus is a computer program that attaches itself to another
computer program (Known as the host program) and attempts to spread to other computers whenever
files are exchanged. Viruses normally attempt to hide within the code of a host programs to avoid
detection. With a description like that you can easily see why they call them viruses because they act
just like the viruses that a person can catch.
Can you keep from ever getting a virus? Sure since a virus can only transfer from computer to
computer by accessing a file if you never access a file with a virus you will never get a virus.But this is
like living in a plastic bubble so as not to catch a virus for other people but just like people computers
can be protected and even cured from viruses with antivirus software that looks for and takes care of
viruses. Also another good way to keep other out of your computer is a Firewall with a good password
that is hard to figure out.
So how can you tell if you might have downloaded a virus on your computer so that you know
that you should check your antivirus software? Well first your antivirus software should be set to
atomically check your computer ever couple days and should automatically update its self each day so
that it will have all the new viruses’ signatures in the library.
Here some ways to know if you might have a virus but it’s not all of them:
1 Existing program icons or files suddenly disappear
2 Changes appear in your browser. If you fire up you browser and it takes you to an unusual
home page.
3 Odd messages or Images are displayed on screen or strange music or sounds play
4 Data files become corrupt
5 Programs don’t work properly
So all this talk about viruses you might wonder how you can even go to web site and give them any info
about yourself. Well it is true you should be careful about what you post expectably on site like
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. But with a good password you can keep yourself somewhat secure but
should you use the same password for all sites? Absolutely not but then how do you keep all those
different passwords in mind if you use a lot of different websites that can be a lot of different
passwords. In both Explorer and Firefox they have password managers that you can set up to remember
them for you and you can secure that with a Master Password. You could also get a separate password
manager software program to do it.