How to keep computer viruses at bay

Computer viruses can easily spread through the Internet and email, causing potential harm to computer data, files and hard drive among other important documents.

Viruses are commonly disguised as hyperlinks, pop-ups or email attachments of images, greeting cards or audio or video files.

The following tips can help keep your computer safe from viruses, hackers and other malicious attacks:

Don’t open email attachments or click on hyperlinks from unknown senders - others could offer leading questions in relation to your passwords, thus tricking the user to share their important details.

Use your spam blocking or filtering tools to block unsolicited emails, instant messages and pop-ups.

Use passwords that are hard to guess and change them regularly. Do not store user names and passwords on websites.

Exercise caution when downloading files from the Internet. Only download from trusted sources.
Back up files on your personal computers regularly using an external hard drive. In case of data loss, fire outbreak or any other disaster, this will come in handy as alternative storage.

Don’t keep sensitive or private information stored on your computer. If you get hacked, information can be found.

Don’t share access to your computer with strangers and turn off file-sharing. Other people could take advantage of this and steal your documents or share secrets with unwanted parties.

New viruses are always being created so it is best to have an anti-virus programme that automatically downloads updates.

Run a full virus scan every week to detect any threats. This will allow any threat to be identified and fixed before using the computer.