This morning I stumbled upon an article over at Popular Mechanic about how you can protect your computer from viruses and malware. The advice was fairly standard except there was one sentence that stood out to me and which I thought was the best possible advice the article cited:

Good software and smart users can foil malware threats, but hackers adapt quickly.

What is a ‘smart user’?

Those who take the time to read the articles here at Lockergnome, in my opinion, are all smart users. These people know computers and are light years ahead of the average user.

They know how to protect their computers, by not only using software to protect them, but also to make sure the software is up to date. Though most anti-virus programs will automatically obtain updates, smart users will also do manual updates as well as manual scans of their systems. These smart users will also periodically user other software’s to scan their systems to make sure that their computers are virus and malware free.

But the most important thing that smart users do is to be smart when they surf. They know the pitfalls on the Internet and know that there are hidden dangers lurking behind those innocent looking web sites. Through their experience they know not to open attachments from persons unknown, but also to heed their browser warnings by not clicking on what is flagged as being unsafe.

Sounds fairly simple don’t it. But if it is so simple for those who are smart users, why do so many Internet users become infected?

Comments welcome.

Source – Popular Mechanics