We are living in an age of cyber attacks. Without your knowledge your computer might have been infected and remotely being controlled by a hacker. There's also the danger of data in laptop being accessed by cyber thieves.
Here are a few simple ways to know if your computer has been infected:
- The computer slows down, even when you haven't loaded lot of data in it.
- Suddenly a browser or a popup window launches itself, without you having done anything. Even if you close them, they open by themselves.
- Security ads pop up, warning you of your laptop getting infected and asking your to download security software.
- You are redirected to a site which wasn't your destination.
- Your friend tells you about an email that's unlike the one you usually send. Or social network shows posts you never posted.
How to be safe online
- The first step to being safe online is never use a pendrive without scanning for viruses.
- Two, never click a link unless you know it's genuine.
- Treat forwarded emails and links on social networks with scepticism. The mails or the posts may be from your friend, but the attachment or the link may not be one that he or she created.
- Test the link if it's safe by typing out the URL on https://safeweb.norton.com/ or http://www.siteadvisor.com/
- Test the attachment by downloading, and running a virus scan. Open only if it's clean. Or else delete it. Make sure your antivirus is updated to the latest second.
These procedures are painful. But worth it.
After the virus on my laptop last year I am extra cautious. I refuse to open links from unknown people.
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