Vancouver Website Design

Complete Website Management

Full Email Newsletter Campaigns

Customized HTML & PHP Programming

Dedicated and Professional Customer Service

5 Critical Steps to Protect Your Computer

Spyware, viruses and worms... oh my!

If you have just bought - or are planning to buy - a new computer, you need to make sure you get it set up properly if you want to avoid problems down the road.

With all the viruses, spyware and other threats on the internet today, no computer should be set up without the proper protection.

And that protection needs to be in place as soon after you hook up your new machine as possible.

The following five steps will make your computer a much harder target for threats. You still won't be completely immune to problems, but 99% of the time the threat will pass you by, looking for the easy mark.

1. Running a Personal Firewall
A personal firewall is software that basically makes your computer invisible to hackers, worms and other threats that can infect your computer over the internet.

Difference Between Viruses and Spyware

One of the biggest slowdowns of a PC is caused by viruses, adware or spyware as it's often called. Before you can benefit from any other optimization tips or improvements you really need a system relatively free from those pests.

A virus is a piece of malicious software code written to cause some kind of damage to a computer system or network or even the Internet itself. Viruses spread, similar to their biological namesake, from one machine to another and can spread havoc wherever they go. They are most commonly spread by sharing files with others or through email attachments where they can be set up to send themselves to all the addresses in your email address book.

Protect Your Computer from Spyware

Spyware - this is one of the biggest threats to security and privacy in the internet today. Spyware intrude, break and enter our computers and pose a great threat especially with more malicious spyware. Leaving a home or business computer unprotected from spyware is just like leaving the front door open to intruders. The internet was not designed with security checks in place, that is why spywares have spread unchecked and now pose a big threat to the security and privacy of millions of internet users all over the world. Roughly 90% of computers today are infected or are vulnerable to spyware. It is more important more than ever to make sure spyware protection is in place in the form of spyware removers.

Credit Card Fraud is Usually Preventable

One of the worst things that can happen to you is credit card fraud. This is even worse if you don't pay very much attention to your credit reports, since you may not find out about the fraud until there are very serious problems to deal with. Even if it's possible to get out of paying for most of the fraudulent purchases that are made on your card, you will often have to pay for some of them - and you will have to go through the hassle of dealing with a stolen credit card if you're not careful.

One of the major places where credit card fraud happens now is online. Therefore, you should be very careful about the companies that you give your credit card number to. Ideally, you should figure out a way to avoid giving out your credit card number at all...

Types of Credit Card Fraud

Every year Billions of dollars are lost on chargebacks and fraud. Some companies go out of business not because they have a bad product or do not market themselves, but because of fraud.

Organized Fraud is a form of organized crime. The criminals use identity theft or some other means to apply for valid credit cards under someone else's name. Once issued, they set up a drop location where they have goods delivered to (usually a vacant house or apartment) and they spend the cards up to their limit. When the bill comes 30 - 45 days later, there's nobody there to pay it and the criminals move on to another credit card...