How valuable is your data?

Most people use their PCs to store large amounts of very personal data everything from family photos to bank and other valuable personal information.

The Internet has never been such a dangerous place with regard to abuse or destruction of data, from Trojan Horses that search for and relay banking details, passwords, email contacts and other personal data to criminals on the Internet that could use it for financial fraud or identity theft, to mindless data destroying viruses that can delete data or render Operating Systems useless requiring a re-installation. This is very inconvenient. You may not want to find your Internet bank account emptied either !

So what can you do?

Educate yourself on the dangers of the Internet and the available protection. Research the threats virii, phishing, Trojans etc. A recommended Anti Virus/Firewall program is an obvious first step, but some are much better than others regardless of marketing campaigns.

One reason is that an anti-virus program is only as good as its last update and release time, so if a vendor (McAffee, Norton, Avast, Kaspersky, TrendMicro, AVG etc.) is not on the ball with their latest virus research and update release strategy as possible, then the more time any newly written malware has to spread and cause whatever damage it is programmed to do.

Go on personal recommendation not vendor hype! Just because the well known ones are the most common does NOT mean they are very good! In fact they are usually the worst because sales and marketing is their priority, not security. I personally recommend the free version of AVG which I have used for almost 10 years.

Data Protection

Rule number 1: Backup your data regularly:

Rule number 2: Backup your data regularly: You get the picture !?

Rule number 3: Think before you click, and where you surf. Porn and IRC sites can be hazardous!

However, if you have all your data saved you can at least replace what is important to you after your system is functional. Obviously, you will need the original install CDs to hand, or with most modern laptops the OS can be restored to the factory default from a partition on the hard drive UNLESS that drive is damaged or corrupt of course.

Create a factory default install DVD from you r system if possible, if you didn t get an original install DVD separately as soon as you buy from new.

Partition the hard drive into a C: drive for the OS and a D: drive for Data if not already done, when you re-install. This way, any data you save on the D: drive will remain intact should you have to re-format then re-install the OS due to a corrupt C: drive for viral or corruption reasons. The D: drive will become accessible again when the OS is restored to the C: drive.