Safety First

I learned quite a bit about internet safety in class. To be honest, I wasn't even sure how exactly hacking worked. I just knew it was bad. Being aware of these security threats is incredibly important. I learned that it is important first to make sure your physical computer is safe because if someone takes it, then there's nothing that you can do to prevent it from being compromised. It was a little more confusing, but worth knowing about the other types of security threats that occur on a more subtle level. Choosing secure passwords and understanding how things like botnets and Trojan horses work is very helpful.

I have a basic anti-virus on my computer but it was put on by someone who knew the best free programs. He also suggested that I use CCleaner every so often to make sure nothing malicious has made its way into my system. The place where I usually have issues is in updating. I used to get frustrated with all of the updates so I had stopped loading them. Although, within the past year I realized how helpful it actually is and started doing it again and I'm glad for that because I didn't know how much of a factor that was in protecting my system.

There are several things I (and anyone else!) can do to be more secure online.

• First, change passwords to be more secure. I didn't realize that the characters that are included in a password can be found so easily just by running a program that is designed to do just that. I thought that including a variety of characters just made it hard for the people themselves to guess it. If my passwords include more variety, my computer will definitely be more secure.
• Second, I can be more cautious when clicking on links and emails. I usually don't have a problem clicking on unsecure things and I can usually recognize phishing attacks and malicious links. However, being extra cautious about what I do click on could make the difference in whether or not I allow a virus or trojan horse into my system. It only takes once. I know that from experience when I had a virus crash my computer last summer.
  
• Finally, like I already said, I can make sure that I check for updates more often and allow them load so that there is no chance of malicious content because of something related to that.