Everyone knows that it is important to secure your computer. Whilst Macs and other operating systems are not totally immune, Windows-based systems in particular are attractive to the makers and suppliers of viruses and other malware simply because there are millions of computers out there to target.
Sometimes protecting your PC can cause more problems than it solves, as the security tool itself becomes the issue. Provided below is a quick guide to some of the most common problems caused by security software.
Bloatware
The idea behind integrated computer security suites that roll anti-virus, firewall and other security services into a single package is great. Users get all of the protection they need in a single package without having to worry about whether anti-virus programs and firewalls from different sources are going to work nicely together.
However, over time the developers of these packages start to roll in more and more features in order to make their offering stand out from the rest and to encourage users to upgrade. Additional features might include system tuning, spam filters, parental controls and all sorts of other stuff you might not actually want or need.
More to the point, all of this takes up space on your hard drive and loads itself into memory when you start the machine to the point where your system begins to slow under the load.
Anti-Virus Software
Everyone has encountered those intrusive anti-virus tools that decide to do a full scan of your system at the worst possible moment. You are just in the middle of some important work and your system suddenly slows down because there is a scan going on that means you won’t be able to get anything done for a couple of hours.
A well-designed system should monitor your system usage and spring into action when you go off to a meeting or get a cup of tea, slipping into the background again when you return.
Firewalls
A good firewall should protect your PC without affecting what you are doing. Unfortunately, there are some that will constantly nag you with pop-up messages asking you to decide on whether particular programs are allowed to access the Web.
This is not only annoying, it can lead to your simply clicking OK each time a message comes up do this too many times without thinking and one day you will allow something you shouldn’t and end up with a much bigger problem.
False Alarms
What can be even worse than a security problem that fails to recognise a threat is one that is so over zealous it constantly throws up alerts about legitimate programs. These false positives are not only annoying, they can stop you from using some of your software. Even big name security companies make mistakes like this from time to time; although these occurrences are rare they do tend to hit the headlines.
Bandwidth Hogs
Security programs need to stay up to date in order to offer effective protection. That means downloading information from the internet or accessing a database in the cloud. Most will do this when they start up or when you run an on-demand scan.
Others constantly update whilst the system is active. Whilst it’s important that the definitions stay current, programs that download data all the time can seriously eat into your bandwidth. If you have an internet connection that restricts how much you can download each month, you may find that this is getting nibbled away by your security suite.
It’s My Data
When Microsoft introduced the Security Center in Windows XP it was intended to provide a single point from which you could access all of the system’s security information.
It would also alert you to any problems, such as the firewall being down, which is obviously important because malware often attempts to disable installed security solutions. Despite numerous software revisions, there are still some security tools that do not report their status to Security Center.
This means you have to monitor them separately. They may have their own icon in the system tray so that you can keep an eye on them, but that of course is one more thing to worry about and also something that’s using system resources.
Don’t Fall for Fakes
The biggest security issue often isn’t the computer itself but the person using it. Attacks often rely on social engineering techniques to get you to install viruses and malware. Often these will be in the form of fake anti-malware programs.
If you see a pop-up whilst you’re online informing you that you need to perform a virus scan, it is almost certainly a fake. If you click OK you’ll probably end up downloading a program that will either tell you that you need to pay money to clean up your system or will simply open the door to download more malware. So-called ‘ransomware’ may even try to lock you out of your PC completely until you pay up.
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’][/author_image] [author_info]
This post was contributed by Hudson & Yorke; telecommunications, networking and IT consultants.
[/author_info] [/author]
