Why personal data security and backup is important?

As many of you know, businesses aren’t the only place hackers and other malicious programs will attack. Often times amatur hackers prefer to attack personal computers because they’re easier to access to get proprietary information (credit cards, social security numbers, login information…). The sad thing, it is no longer as simple as avoiding a website or opening an email you are unfamiliar with. All it takes is a script embed onto a website or within an email and they got you.

I normally recommend to my clients to do the following steps when downloading an application from the Internet…

• Backup often to an external drive or disk
• Store personal data like photos, financial information, etc. on an external source
  (the first thing a hacker program will look into are system files and folders)
• Delete cookies and history often. If it is something you are going back to often, add it to your favorites.
• Never run an application straight from a website unless you know the website is legit
• Save and run a virus protection program before installing a downloaded application
• If there are additional third-party downloads within the installation, never check them
• Finally, run the virus protection on the folder of the installed application to capture any hidden files that can execute upon opening the application

Please note that even when your this cautious, you can still have problems. Virus applications work but they are never going to be 100%. Oh no what do you mean? Virus protection companies, although they try to be proactive sometimes are ineffective against new virus applications. They are an “after-the-fact” service that provide solutions after the damage has been done to someone.

 

This post contains the opinions and information from the experience of Solutions by Joshua Troy.