I have just realised that despite having contributed to this blog for over six months I have never discussed anything to do with protecting yourself against computer viruses. This of course is an extremely important subject as these days virus protection needs to be considered as an absolutely vital part of your computing setup. It is certainly something for which it would extremely inadvisable to go without unless you never ever connected your computer to the Internet. Even then the chance of infection delivered through the use of USB sticks or the transfer of digital documents really still would need to be protected against.

Protect yourself

There are a number of ways to ensure you are protected against virus attacks, and the one you choose will depend largely on your current situation. If you have recently bought a laptop for instance, with Windows Vista or XP installed you have the option of opting for Microsoft’s OneCare service. Another option would be to choose something like Norton’s Antivirus 2008. Often a newly purchased PC will have 90 day trials of these packages already installed and after the trial period you will be prompted to purchase an time extension online. These are both subscription based services for which the initial purchase price will include access to regular updates of the software virus database for a limited time period, usually 12 months, after which you have to renew again.

If you have an older laptop and you want to change or upgrade your present virus protection or you presently do not use any virus checking (Hint: buy one the above packages as soon as possible) you can purchase either Norton Antivirus and Microsoft OneCare or a similar package.

Update the database

However you purchase your virus protection software it is important to keep the virus database constantly updated. This is so that the application will be able to recognise and protect your computer from any new viruses that might appear on the scene. You should set up your application to check for new updates on a daily basis.

Do you have a preferred anti virus product?

Wireless networks are great, but you need to take some precautions to ensure the security of your network. In this post we are finishing our look at the seven important steps you can take to better ensure the security of your WiFi network. In this post we will cover steps you can take that do not involve administration of the router itself. These steps are not nearly as important as steps 1, 2 and 3 which I recommend as a minimum but they do add some additional layers of security.

Step 5 - Router positioning

If you have some flexibility in terms of where you can place your router or access point within your home, then choose a position that minimises the leakage of your wireless signal outside of your house. This will reduce the likely hood of your signal being picked up by somebody who might be tempted to try and connect.

Step 6 - Use your router’s firewall

The vast majority of routers and access points, like the Linksys WRT54GL Wireless G Router for example, provide an internal firewall. Make sure that this is activated. I would still recommend that you use individual software firewalls on any computers running on your network

Step 7 - Turn off when not required

The last step you should take is to turn off your wireless access point when it is not required. This has to be practical of course so there is probably little point in turning off the wireless network every night, but if you are going to be away for a few days then it would probably make sense.

Summary

So just to recap the most important steps to take to secure your network are steps 1, 2 and 3 and I would advise these in all cases. The remaining steps are worthwhile and provide additional layers of security.

For the previous posts see;

7 steps to increase wireless network security: Part 1
7 steps to increase wireless network security: Part 2

Wireless networks are great, but you need to take some precautions to ensure the security of your network. In this post we are continuing our look at the seven important steps you can take to ensure the security of your WiFi network. All these steps can be done either during initial setup or using the administration tools of any wireless router such as the D-Link DKT-710 Wireless G ADSL2 router.

Step 2 - Change the default SSID and don’t broadcast

All manufactures provide their access points and routers with a default network name called the SSID (which stands for Service Set Identifier). The default SSID is usually the same for all of a manufacturer’s products. It is a good idea to change this name to something that is meaningful to you only and will make it difficult for someone to identify your specific device. A default SSID is more likely to attract unwanted attention. The majority of setup wizards will prompt you to change the default SSID so do so. You should also turn off SSID broadcast which is not really useful for a home wireless network, this will again minimise the attraction of unwanted attention.

Step 3 - Enable secure encryption

All wireless access points and routers support a number of different variations of wireless encryption. You should always enable encryption during the initial setup or if you didn’t so go and do it right now! You should use the strongest form of encryption that your device supports. For home networks using modern equipment this is likely to be WPA Personal (PSK) the PSK stands for “Pre-Shared Key” which is essentially a pass phrase. Any device that connects to your network will need to know this pass phrase.

Step 4 - Use Mac Address filtering

A more advanced step is to use MAC address filtering. MAC stands for “Media Access Control”. Each device that has a networking capability will have a MAC address. The majority of wireless access points and routers support MAC Address filtering. To set this up you need to publish on your router a list of all the MAC address of the devices that will connect to your network. The router will then not allow a connection from any device that does not have a MAC address on the list.

We will finish with steps 5, 6 and 7 in the next post.

Wireless networks are great, but you need to take some precautions to ensure the security of your network. In a series of posts we are going to look at the most important steps you can take to ensure the security of your WiFi network.

Wireless networks enhance Internet access

In a number of previous posts we have had a look at the equipment you might need to set up a WiFi wireless network in your own home. See Wireless Networking Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 if you are interested in a quick refresher. One of the key messages of these posts is that having a wireless network will generally change and certainly enhance the way the whole family can access and use the Internet.

Secure the network

As the network is wireless this means that you effectively have the potential to access the Internet from anywhere in the house, but this freedom does mean you have to take a few extra steps to secure your network. These steps are especially important when setting up a wireless router such as the Netgear 54mbps wireless ADSL firewall router for the first time. All manufacturers will provide web based tools and setup wizards which allow a user to administer their device and apply the following suggested steps.

Step 1 - Change the default administrator login

A very important first step is to change the initial default and very simple administrator user name and password that is provided by the manufacture (these defaults are all well known and documented on the Internet), this is so that only you can login to the administration tools of your WiFi router.

More to follow in the next post ..

It is seems that we are always hearing about someone important, usually in government, losing their laptop. Often that laptop had potentially been holding sensitive data about the government’s citizens or data important to the defence and security of the nation in question. We have discussed this briefly in a number of posts recently. However if people are losing the odd laptop, just think about the numbers of mobile phones, USB drives and media players like that shiny new iPod, that must also be going missing.

These gadgets are far easier to lose, and I bet it is happening in fairly significant numbers. The problem is that with the general convergence of functionality of all these devices, they all are likely to contain data, some of which may be sensitive.

So what is to be done? Well one reasonably obvious approach is to use encryption, so if you do happen lose your device, the data is still protected. If done right, some level of encryption automation can be built into your process for working with data and your gadgets. Essentially there are two approaches to this, the first through software and the second through the hardware itself. The first approach is by far the more flexible approach though generally will mean extra steps to ensure the data you are storing on your portable devices is actually protected. The second is where storage device itself has encryption built in. An example of something like this would be the Amacom Encryp2disk pictured above. This second approach limits your choice but does avoid creating extra hoops to jump through to encrypt your data.

How do you secure your data on your portable devices? If you don’t perhaps it time start thinking about it!

Everyone agrees that data and information security is a very important. Though of course there will always be different views on who is responsible for the security of a certain piece of information. There will then be further diverging views on how that information should be physically or digitally secured.

Most people you ask, would agree that the UK government is extremely bad at look after important information in its care. Especially, it seems if that data and information relates to me and you the general public. The latest fiascos with the loss of the names, addresses and bank account details related to the child benefit allowances, and the continuing losses of Ministry of Defence laptops certainly seems to confirm that thought.

So what about your own laptop? Are you carrying around a lot of your own personal data on your laptop? If so I have a number of questions for you. Do you have a regular backup of all your data? Do you encrypt your personal data? And are you very careful about leaving your laptop lying around unsecured even for a second? Few people can afford to lose their data and expensive laptop and as I travel and work a lot in many offices I have become quite fanatical about using my security cable at all times. Kensington produce a twin lock cable which I find really useful. Are you locking up your laptop, or are you looking for a position with the MOD?