Securing Your Computer  

Rick Bodey, Ohio Association Parliamentarian

Being a part of Business Professionals of America means working long hard hours on the computer, and this is why it is so important to keep your computer as secure as possible.  Computers are exciting, wonderful and dangerous all at the same time.  Exciting because you can do so much, wonderful because you can get work done so fast, and dangerous because all of your work can be gone in a minute if you do not follow these easy steps to securing your computer.

The first step is to use secure passwords.  If you have a password like “goofy” or “password,” I would suggest you change it immediately.  A password that can be found in an English dictionary can be hacked in less than 1 minute.  What does this mean?  This means that you need to make your password unusual and containing special characters.  What do I mean by special characters?  I mean your password should contain symbols such as “!”, “@”, “#”, “%”, “&”, or similar symbols.  Your password should be more than 8 characters in length.  Even if you have a special character and your password is only 5 characters long, that password can be hacked in less than 10 minutes.  A good password would be something like “$4878#cnt%04”.

The second step is to turn off file sharing. You can access this by going to Start-Settings-Network Connections and then right clicking on your active connection (Local Area Connection) and selecting “properties”. If file and print sharing is enabled, you will want to disable this unless you are obviously sharing your files or printers.

The third step is to use a firewall. Windows XP has a firewall built in and can be activated by going to Start-Settings-Network Connections and then clicking the advanced tab. Once you are in the Local Area Connection Property's Advanced Tab all you have to do is Check the Activate XP Firewall Box and click “ok”. Zonealarm also has a free firewall available that can be found at http://download.com. I like ZoneAlarm because it has quite a few more features, but the XP firewall will be sufficient for securing your computer.

Finally, make sure your computer is up to date. You must update your computer on a consistent basis. I would suggest updating your virus scanner and version of Windows weekly. Virus protection is only good if it knows what it is looking for. If you computer has not been updated, it would be like sending you out to look for someone you have never seen before. This is why updates are so important and essential.

If you follow the steps that I have outlined above, your computer will be much more secure and you will be very unlikely to have problems with hackers. The internet and computers are constantly changing, and you must do your best to try to stay ahead of the bad guys.