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How can i help increase security with Windows XP?

Security is an ever increasing issue when it comes to computing. Thankfully people are becoming more aware of the dangers they can come across when using their PC - but that doesn’t help if they don’t know how to keep themselves secure in the first place!

Hopefully you will find some (fairly basic) useful information on this page to aid in securing your machine and using your common sense when giving out personal details, reading suspicious emails or buying goods online.

Checklist

To keep your Windows based PC secure, you will need the following - sorted by importance with the most imporant at the top:

• A correctly configured firewall.
• All the latest security updates from Microsoft installed. 
• Up-to-date and reliable anti-virus.

Firewalls

A software firewall will basically restrict network/Internet access from and to your PC.

An example of how it can block outbound traffic could be: whenever you load up Internet Explorer, it needs to contact the Internet to load whatever page you request from the world wide web. If you have a software firewall installed and configured NOT to allow Internet Explorer to have access to the Internet, it would not be able to connect and therefore download the www page you requested.

The above example is why a software firewall can be useful, as most will ask you before it allows an application (be it a legit one such as IE, or a trojan keylogger than is trying to tell a PC somewhere on the Internet about each key you press…) to access the Internet.

The number one rule for firewalls: DON’T KEEP JUST HITTING THE “ALLOW” BUTTON! Whenever your firewall application pops up and tell’s you a certain application is trying to access the Internet - you need to CHECK what application it is! If you simply always click “Allow” there is no need for the firewall, if you always click “Block/Deny” you will never be able to access the Internet!

Use your common sense - if you just install iTunes and your firewall kicks in asking if you want the application “iTunes.exe” to access the Internet, you can be fairly certain its OK to click “Allow”. If you were browsing some dodgy website or reading an email from an unknown sender and your firewall pops up…click DENY and ensure your anti-virus picks it up! It’s one of those messages you really need to read before clicking anything, and you need to use your common sense.

Comodo Personal Firewall and Zonealarm are good free firewall solutions and can be found easily through a decent search engine. Alternatively, the firewall built in to XP SP2 isn’t too bad, and is much better than nothing.

Windows Updates

Apply SP2 and any MS updates as often as possible if you are using Windows XP. Make sure you read all error/info message boxes- they are telling you what is wrong. Even if its an error with what appears to be a random error number, typing that number into Google may give some results.

Buying goods online

The Internet can be great for finding products substantially cheaper than high street stores, but not knowing what you are doing when typing in your credit/debit card numbers could leave you with a hole in your pocket. As a routine, you should close all other programs, run a virus/malware/spyware scanner, check running processes, check IE add-ins, and ensure there is nothing listening to your key strokes.

Personally, i would never do online banking or buy any goods over the Internet from a workplace, educational establishment, cybercafe, etc - as i quite basically do not know for sure what could be running or monitoring network use, and i dont want to take the risk.

Try not to buy from any website just because it is cheaper than another - ideally you want to find sites by recommendation from people you know, and then try to stick with them if you think they provided you with a good service. The point i am trying to get at is that there are thousands of websites offering great products and great prices, but some of these simply take your card details (and in turn, your money) and disappear off the face of the Earth. It can happen - so be careful.

E-mail

Try to avoid using Microsoft Outlook, or MS Outlook Express, they are ridiculous for security. I like to use Pocomail or Mozilla Thunderbird, you can find both easily using a decent search engine. They are simple to use, free, and Pocomail has a lot of advanced features for anyone who needs them.

If possible, audit your mail on the server before downloading it.