Five ways to protect your computer from cyber attack

If you saw the story earlier this week about the foiling of some of the world’s biggest cyber criminals, you might be on the look-out for tips to protect yourself, your computer and your online activity. Here are mine: five simple steps to prevent yourself falling victim to GameOver Zeus and/or Cryptolocker.

1. Don’t click on email attachments or links in emails unless you’re sure they’re legit – no matter how convincing the email looks.
If you hover your mouse over a link, you often see a small window pop up giving you the actual address to which the link leads: make sure you’re happy you’re not being tricked into visiting a dodgy site!

2. Install anti-virus software, update it, then run it.
If you can, try to buy the physical CD in a shrink-wrapped box from a reputable shop rather than downloading it from the web  – that way, you don’t risk downloading something fishy.

3. Update your operating system and keep updating it regularly.
If you’re on a PC, this is Windows, if you have an Apple computer, it’s OS X. If you use Linux, you probably don’t need advice from me.

4. Update your web browser
Be it Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox or Safari – if your browser is up to date it will spot nasties lurking on websites.

5. Back up your documents regularly onto a separate drive or memory stick, and keep it somewhere unplugged from your computer.
That way any viruses don’t automatically transfer to your drive, ruining your back-up.

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