Here are some simple tips to help you secure your Windows PC.<\/p>\n
While Windows 7<\/strong> is still getting security patches from Microsoft, it is an OS from 2009, and the state of the art in computer security has moved on since then. Windows 10<\/strong> has many new features which help secure your PC, mitigating the effects of malware. Unless your software absolutely cannot work under Windows 10 then I suggest planning a migration sooner rather than later. Windows 10 seems quite happy on hardware which supports Windows 7.<\/p>\n If you are obliged to keep running Windows 7 (or 8) then you should strongly consider installing\u00a0Microsoft EMET<\/a> (Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit<\/strong>) which adds extra security layers that have proven effective<\/a> in blocking some types of malware. In the default install it toughens up Office and Internet Explorer with no additional work needed.<\/p>\n If you only have one or two bits of software which won’t work in Windows 10 you may want to consider running them in a virtual machine. The School has a membership in the VMWare Academic Program<\/strong> which provides free copies of VMWare products to staff and students for teaching and research.<\/p>\n Even Microsoft has moved away from Internet Explorer, with their new Edge browser<\/a> in Windows 10, though it’s still under heavy development and not really ready for prime time. As Edge is not even available for earlier versions of Windows I suggest installing either Chrome<\/a> or Firefox<\/a> and using them as your main browser. Both support a range of extensions such as advert (e.g.\u00a0Adblock<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0AdBlock Plus<\/a>) and flash (e.g. Flashblock<\/a>, Flashcontrol<\/a>) blockers which can help protect you from malicious applets and compromised advert servers.<\/p>\n It’s OK not to understand everything written above; what’s\u00a0not<\/em> OK is to do nothing. If you don’t know, ask someone who does, like one of the school computer support staff.<\/p>\n You can find more information about campus computer security on the Information Services Data Security<\/a> site – though you should ignore the suggestion about installing Adobe Reader! For more general computer security information Krebs on Security<\/a> is an excellent starting point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here are some simple tips to help you secure your Windows PC. The checklist Ensure that Windows Update is enabled and set to check for, and apply, updates daily. Ensure that you have the campus AV solution (Symantec) installed. Other … Continue reading Web browsers<\/h1>\n
More info<\/h1>\n