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Anyone
who has ever been to an idyllic beach resort, or anywhere that has
mosquitoes knows the importance of ensuring that the windows and doors
to your room are blocked off, to ensure that the blood sucking insects
do not manage to break in and leave you waking up looking as if you have
measles or worse. Thankfully most of us purchase insect repellent before
we travel, which gives us that sense of extra protection.
With the
internet though, the results can be much worse than a few bites. Recent
reports in the Bangkok Post, and other leading media from around the
region have informed us to the increase in computer crime, by which
'human' mosquitoes manage to break into your pc and steal or corrupt
anything that they feel like, without you possibly ever knowing.
This type
of crime is a serious violation of privacy but most importantly an
enormous security threat, as all your passwords, personal information
and important files can easily be downloaded or even corrupted or
destroyed. If they do not wish to be so malicious they could simply use
your identity to send spam, or to use your logon id and passwords to
gain access for themselves on the internet, which of course would lead
to enormous bills for internet usage. Unless of course you are in a
country such as Singapore which offers unlimited access. But even that
will not protect you, because while technology may be easy and is
becoming much easier to use, the simple idea of roaming will give you an
idea as to exactly how expensive a small break in could be. If the
hacker is let's say in Africa or anywhere outside your home country,
then that person could very easily steal your login details, and start
roaming for 24 hours a day at your expense ! This is such a serious
threat that companies such as Starhub (Singapore ISP) now send an email
to their customers to inform them when over 100 minutes of roaming are
used.
How do
they do this ? Well it is exactly the same why as a mosquito manages to
break into your bedroom as you sleep - somewhere there is an opening
that allows the hacker into your pc while you are online. And in case
you are wondering, no, your Antivirus software does not stop or even
recognise most of these attacks.
So how do
you protect yourself and purchase the IT equivalent of a mosquito net
and suitable repellent ? There are many different products available,
but as we as a company swear by Norton Antivrus software, we felt it
more logical to stay with this leader in computer security and test out
their Internet Security.
It has to
be said straight off that the product is amazing, it is easy to install,
easy to operate and does not use up to much memory as it is running in
the background. What is frightening though is that this software opens
your eyes to what was going on before you installed the software, and
that can be very frightening.
We
installed the software in minutes and continued our surfing with a total
sense of security, knowing that we were behind the most up to date
firewall that Norton (Symantec) can offer. In fact you would never
really know that the software is running at all until you get the
occasional alert that one of your programmes is trying to access the
internet.
The whole
system is configurable and enables you to control the strength of the
firewall and its components. So not only are you stopping people from
effectively accessing your system through a malicious attack but you
also have a stream of other very useful features. These features include
stopping websites from taking your personal information as you surf the
web, it conceals your browsing pattern from websites and you could if
you wanted to even block cookies. PLUS, there is one more angel of a
service that Internet 2001 offers, and that is that you can block all
those banner ads, or pop up windows, this alone is worth the small
price tag, surfing heaven !
For
families a family version is also available that allows you to control
access to certain websites, which can be very useful.
So, there
you have it, we HIGHLY recommend you purchase this. Why ? Well after we
first set up Internet Security on our test computer, we left it
connected to the internet for a mere 12 hours a day to be able to
properly test the system, and within 8 days the newly installed software
had blocked 175 accesses to our computer, we have also had 120 Browser
Privacy blocks which stops hackers or/and websites from stealing
personal information while you are online and we have blocked loads of
those annoying banner ads.
What is
even more frightening is that in that small 8 day period, 21 of the
Blocked 175 accesses were of the Trojan variety, which is definitely a
very nasty mosquito somewhere trying to suck blood, and a large number
of the others were equally as nasty.
With a
small price tag of around US$ 71, we strongly suggest you buy this
software today, after all you would not go willingly to a mosquito
infected swamp without some protection. You can learn more about this
product here: http://www.symantec.com
NOTE
Many
people have asked us whether to by this product as a pirate edition. We
have one thing to say about this and other security products - the
keyword is security. Would you honestly buy a "pirate" condom
and hope that it works, or would you buy the original. Of course both
are available but when it comes to the security and health of our
computer systems, we know which we would buy. Strange comparison but you
get the picture !
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There
are many other country specific tips in the column to the left and other
general tips below:
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