The Hindu Business Line : Tip off

Safe guarding the system from hackers is one thing every PC user would like to know, the bad news is that it is a tough job. The Internet is a world of information and also a gateway to a host of preying hackers waiting to pull out information and data out of your PC.

One simple way to secure your system is to disconnect it from the Internet and any network to which it is hooked. Then, again, what is the use of your system if it is out from the network and the Internet?

So here is where you need to have some security programs, which protect your system even while you are connected to the Internet or a corporate network.

You can have some firewall programs installed to prevent intruders from entering your system.

You can think of a firewall as a program, which shuts off all the entries throuigh which an intruder could enter. However, the fact remains that not every such entrys can be shut off, as you need to allow access for genuine program data like that of your browser itself and there is every possibility that an intruder will try to find such loops in the firewall to enter into the system.

So though a firewall doesn't promise you a 100 per cent intrusion security, it makes your PC more secure.

Here are some well-known firewall software, BlackICE PC Protection 3.5, McAfee Firewall 3.02, Sygate Technologies' Personal Firewall Pro 5, Symantec's Norton Personal Firewall 2002, Freedom Personal Firewall 3.2, and Zone Labs' ZoneAlarm Pro 3.

One ill-effect of installing a firewall is that it does interfere with genuine applications and deny them access, thus rendering your PC a pain to handle, a neat and careful configuration is required to enjoy a happy firewall usage.

Intrusion is just one face of security hazards, a more deadly attackers are the Trojan horses, backdoor programs and spy wares, which get installed on your system either through some software which you installed because they appear to be useful downloads or harmless e-mail attachments or even through some popup on the Internet.

Once they've entered your system, these programs make your PC vulnerable to hackers by opening ports to intruders or collecting data, passwords, documents etc. and sending them over to the hackers.

So, it is a necessity that you have a reliable antiviral scanner running on your system, and also make sure that its virus definitions are up to date.

Here are some URLs where you can get some useful firewalls, Spy ware detectors, add blockers and the like.

http://www.firewall

guide.com/

freeware.htm

http://www.webattack.

com/freeware/

categories/10/

Additionally you can try switching your MS Internet Explorer browser and Outlook Express mail client to other alternate browsers like Opera orNetscape, as IE and OE are targets for any hacker.

Solution by G. Rajah

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