Protecting The Internet From Virus Attacks

It's pretty common knowledge these days that you need to run some kind of antivirus protection on your computer. But it's not commonly known that the computers that make up the internet are also at risk. What's being done to protect them?

Viruses can attack servers that run websites, email and other internet functions. They're not limited to desktop PC's.

Servers are usually substantially the same as PC's only with more memory, disk space and processors. Web servers house web pages and programs for Internet users, e-mail servers store, send and receive e-mail, and file and ftp servers make possible storage and distribution of all manner of files for other systems. Routers are simply specialized computers, with proprietary operating systems, for routing network traffic.

Most operate much like an individual's system and are subject to the same kinds of attacks. They can therefore be protected by many of the same means - regular use of reliable antivirus software and being firewall guarded to shut down vulnerable entry points on the Internet.

What else can be done?

Since servers and routers provide services to multiple, sometimes thousands, of user systems they're more frequently attacked. Users can help administrators of these systems by keeping their own systems clean and refraining from passing on viruses to others across them. Administrators can help themselves by forgoing the temptation to use them as personal computers with full e-mail clients, word processing software, and fully enabled browsers.

When you keep your computer protect against online security threats, you're helping to minimize the target area for hackers. It's also necessary to keep your computer updated with the latest operating system and browser patches. You may even want to consider running a more secure web browser, such as Firefox, instead of Internet Explorer.

Avoid booting from or loading software from CD's, DVD's or other disks that haven't been scanned for viruses, if you're not sure of the source. If a single file on one of those disks contains a virus, it can spread like wildfire.

If you use FTP, you should look into switching to a more secure system for file transfers. FTP passwords are sent "in the clear" - there is no encryption on them at all. So when you log into an FTP server, if someone is monitoring your internet traffic, they can easily get your password.

It's up to all of us to make sure these systems remain secure - not just the system administrators. They have a lot of work on their plate and aren't always as quick to respond to security issues as they would like.

Article Source: http://www.search4allinfo.com

Is your computer as secure as it should be? Find out what you should be doing to keep it safe from viruses, spyware and other internet security threats at the Online Security Toolkit website. Visit www.onlinesecuritytoolkit.com for more information. You are welcome to reprint this article - but get your own unique content version here.

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated