A guide to protecting your PC

While they may not always be immediately obvious, a wide range of threats could damage your PC if it lacks adequate security. These can be particularly damaging for businesses, as they can result in the corruption of important applications, and loss or theft of data. With these risks threatening your business, security should be at the forefront of your overall IT strategies.

PC security is often broadly referred to as antivirus - though this is now just one component in a set of applications that can protect your PC. The components common in a PC security suite include Antivirus, Antispyware, Antispam, a Personal Firewall, and an Access Control system.  Following is a brief description of each:

Antivirus
Eliminates malicious software that can potentially harm your system.  While older antivirus programs relied only on known virus definitions in order to identify threats, recent versions use heuristic analysis in order to spot suspicious “virus-like” behaviour, giving protection against a wider range of threats.

Antispyware
Detects, eliminates, and prevents the installation of “spyware”: software that is surreptitiously installed on a computer system (usually over the course of normal internet use) that can capture and transmit personal data (including browsing history and personal details such as passwords and online banking information).

Antispam
Filters out junk mail by scanning incoming messages for common spam keywords and analyzing the message headers – this can determine if the sender’s e-mail address is valid, and if the originating mail server is black-listed as a known source of spam.

Personal Firewall
Controls network traffic passing through the computer, according to a policy configured by the user. This restricts network activity to only trusted applications or external sources, and can alert the user to any unwanted intrusion or broadcasting attempts. A good personal firewall works hand in hand with antivirus software to identify and block malicious software coming in over the network

Access Control
Restricts access to software according to policies set up by the computer’s administrator. This is particularly useful for parents to limit the internet sites accessible by their children, or for employees to prevent misuse of shared terminals

Choosing the right security suite

Comprehensive protection
A good suite should have all the components listed above, though inclusion of Access Control isn’t necessary unless applicable to your situation /environment.  Having one unified security package is much better than installing components from different vendors (ie, antivirus by McAfee, Antispyware by Microsoft) which aren’t designed to work together and may even result in conflicts.  Also, the level to which a security suite employs heuristic threat detection can impact its effectiveness in virus detection, though this can lead to a negative effect on system performance (see below).

Minimum system requirements
Protecting your PC can be very resource-intensive, and some security suites consume more active memory and take up more disk space than others.  Depending on how the security policies are set up, there may be a noticeable slowdown in running other programs, browsing the internet, or retrieving your mail.  Higher spec systems are more capable of absorbing the additional overhead.  Some security suites are more “lightweight” and thus friendlier to lower-end systems, but can be less thorough in their detection of threats.  Also, some current software packages are phasing out support for older operating systems such as Windows 95, 98, and 2000.

Speed and frequency of updates
In theory all antivirus software should be more or less equally effective in eliminating known threats, as the virus labs of all security providers openly share information and malware fixes with each other.  However, the speed at which the end-users’ client applications are updated with this information varies greatly. A good antivirus client should regularly connect to the vendor’s server to check for new virus definitions. Use of heuristic analysis can somewhat mitigate the threat from new viruses, but these methods aren’t as reliable as having a proper definition downloaded.

E-mail client support
All security software supports Microsoft’s market-leading Outlook and Outlook Express applications, but if you’re using an alternative mail client such as Eudora, Thunderbird, or IncrediMail, it’s important to make sure your chosen security suite is compatible

User-friendliness
A good security system should have an interface and control system that’s accessible to the average computer user, with alerts that clearly explain the nature of the threat found and give the user easily understandable options on how to proceed.  Confusing the user with highly technical jargon could lead to misconfigured policies or, worse, accidentally allowing malware access to your system

XLN Secure

Comprehensive study of the security suites of nearly a dozen leading software vendors was undertaken in order to choose our partner in supplying a leading-edge security solution to bundle with our business broadband.  These included the packages of Symantec, McAfee, Sophos, Kaspersky, AVG, eSet, Panda, and others.  After weeks of side-by-side testing and comparison on the above criteria and more, XLN developed a co-branded security solution with Finland’s F-Secure, whose products are consistently recognized for their quality and effectiveness in combating threats to computer security. F-Secure’s virus labs are headed by Chief Research Officer Mikko Hypponen, recently named one of the 50 Most Important People on the Web by PC World magazine for his contributions towards antivirus research.