How to protect against viruses, malware and ransomware
Your mother has always told you that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. There is nowhere this advice is more true than when it comes to protecting your computer against viruses, malware and ransomware.
Virus protection software goes a long way to helping you protect your computer. However, it isn’t foolproof. Here are five tips for how to protect against viruses, malware and ransomware.
Use next generation Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware Software
Most anti-virus programs are always playing catchup. As new viruses are discovered your anti-virus service will add to their database but new and unknown virus/malware is allowed to go through. To be fair they also use heuristics to guess if there is malware but is not as reliable as we would like.
At Lakeland IT we offer the next generation anti-virus and anti-malware software that uses new sandbox technology. If a program is unknown it is run in a protected sandbox where it cannot access the computer files. The software will also be uploaded to the cloud where it will be run and analyzed. This will take around 45 seconds, if the file cannot be determined to be clean or bad then it will be send to the lab with a 3 hour turnaround time. Please contact Lakeland IT for more information on this exciting new anti-virus/anti-malware protection software.
Backup your Data
One of the best tips for protecting against harmful code is to back up your information regularly. Make a copy of ALL of your files and store them on removable media. At lakeland IT we offer backup software that will backup your entire computer not by copying files and folders but by backing up each 1 and 0’s on the entire hard drive. This will enable the restoration of the operating system, installed programs and all data. This will protect against malware that the antivirus program did not catch and also will enable restore if your hard drive fails. With this software a computer can be restored in less than an hour as opposed to 4-5 hours to reinstall the operating system, programs and data. Please call or email Lakeland IT for more information.
Just Say No
When it comes to suspicious looking emails and attachments, you are better off just deleting them unopened. You should also block the ads that pop up when you visit popular websites. This will protect you from an up and coming threat known as malvertising.
Patch
As new security threats become known, software developers push out software patches to fix vulnerabilities in their programs. By patching regularly, you can lower your risk of infection.
Infected anyway? Disconnect. Despite your best efforts, you may still be infected with some sort of malicious code. The best thing you can do from here is to prevent spreading it by disconnecting the infected device from the network.