smart computer use?

Mac users have been able to avoid the virus hoopla that surrounds Windows users for years. This period of calm might be coming to an end.

Be warned: Apple’s comeback in the world of personal computing brings with it a heightened level of security risks for its customers, not unlike those Microsoft Windows devotees have faced for years. Reports surfaced earlier this week of a malicious new Trojan horse–like piece of software found on several pornography Web sites that has the potential to let cyber thieves take control of infected Mac computers so they can steal personal information.

Read the article here.

Coding Horror once again has a great article with some great insight. This time it has to do with trojans, viruses, and running your Windows machine in an account that IS NOT THE ADMINISTRATOR.

If you aren’t already aware, people that run Linux and Mac operating systems rarely have to install any sort of anti-virus software on their machine. Windows is quite the opposite.

But, there are people that claim they can use Windows without anti-virus software and not feel worried.

Virus protection seems almost mandatory on a Windows system, unless you are really a Windows security guru.

Separating yourself from needing to use virus protection on your computer system is ultimately a smart move. Moving to an operating system that is not targeted by virus writers is a good idea, but not always feasible.

When using Windows, the idea of not using virus protection is almost laughable.

Anyways, back to the point about not running your Windows machine as an administrator.

This is a grand idea. If you don’t run your Windows machine as an administrator user, you are cutting off a lot of the abilities of viruses to wreak havoc on your machine.

The bottom line is this: don’t use your Windows machine as an admin user. Set up a separate user account and use that. That will make it much harder for a program to take control of your machine with administrator rights to your machine.