PC Maintenance and Security

I have to start off with a bit of frustration. The title of this blog is "PC Maintenance and Security" with the emphasis being on PC. Well, I own an Mac and my school system uses Macs. Therefore, many of the videos on the Atomic Learning Tutorial site were based on Windows and PCs and not compatible with Macs. I was interested in defragmentation until I realized that unlike windows, OSX doesn't offer an easy way to defragment the hard drive. So I stuck to the videos which focused more on security and internet rather than PC maintenance. However, I did watch a video about Intrusion Prevention Software (IPS) and Intrusion Detection Software (IDS) which i found rather interesting even though it did not really apply to me. After further research I found out that the best IPs and IDS are not for Macs. I was a bit confused at the beginning when it told me that how anti-spyware and anti-virus programs are based on a "signature". BUt the tutorial went on and used an awesome analogy which made complete sense! The tutorial stated that "IPS and IDS detect malware based on behavior and not a signature. This is like catching a thief based on characteristics and not fingerprints." That totally makes sense! (To add to the confusion, my husband, was trying to explain the software to me which made zero sense. So naturally, when I finally heard the analogy and understood the concept it made sense.)

I watched another tutorial on Phishing. I thought I had some knowledge about Phishing, but I did not give the "bad guys" enough credit! The tutorial showed an example of an e-mail sent using the Bank of America logo. The e-mail looked very legit. But rather than asking you to respond to the e-mail with your account number, password and social security number, they took it to the next level. They put a link to a "Bank of America" website (not the actual website but one that looked identical) and had you enter your information there. This just amazed me. I always knew that no legitimate financial institute would ask for any of that information, but asking you to click on a link was a good way to confuse people. When in doubt, always go straight to the actual website- and do not click a link. What great advice that is since phishing happens to large bank companies, credit card companies as well as ebay.

Finally, the last tutorial I watched was on online backup. My brother is a big supporter in this and constantly tells me to do so. To tutorial talked about two main sites: Media Max and Foldershare. Both are available for PCs and Macs since they are via the internet. The Media Max offered free 25 GB secure storage. Something I never thought of: back up your pictures and videos! It's not just your documents you can lose if something were to happen to your computer, but all those pictures you have saved. So just for the sake of my memories, I think that's where I will start. :)