Three Key Steps to Secure PC Software

The key to protecting your devices, computers and data from hackers is secure PC software. Hackers (also known as cybercriminals) hack into your computer or other device for many reasons, including taking, altering, and deleting information you consider important. Contrary to other thieves who often have legitimate uses for the stolen goods they have malicious motives. They are most concerned with unauthorized access pia vs nordvpn to sensitive information. This could happen before you realize there is something wrong.

Passwords, a virus protection program and a firewall are the three essential steps to secure your computer software. If you follow these best practices, your computer will be significantly less susceptible to being compromised by malware, hackers or ransomware (software which encrypts your data and demands payment for unlocking it).

Change the name of your administrator account. Choose a password that is strong and contains upper- and lowercase letter, numbers and computer symbols. Avoid using a password like 1234 because hackers can use automated software to hack passwords that are easy to guess in mere minutes.

Make sure that your operating system (OS) and other software up-to-date. The majority of software updates include security fixes to help protect against hackers. Install all patches and enable automatic updates if they are available to limit the amount of time that you are vulnerable to intrusions.

If you own a laptop or any other portable device that isn’t being used, ensure that the drive is encrypted. This is especially crucial for UF students. You can enable encryption in Windows by opening Settings > Update and security > Device encryption. This will protect your entire internal drive as well as most external drives, such as SD cards.