It either stops the user from downloading and executing an infected file or prevents him from opening one that was send to him by mail, on disc or Instant Messenger. Even more bothering is the fact, that no Antivirus software is perfect. Their recognition rate lies anywhere between 80-99% of known viruses and Trojans.

Yes that is right, if the virus is not known they probably let it slip through. It happens though that I come upon a questionable file and I decided to use online scanners for those files instead. They quickly scan the file and let me know if a virus or trojan is attached to it.

To make this work I have to be careful of what I download and where I download it. I would probably run a Antivirus scanner all the time if I did download a lot from Rapidshare, P2P or questionable websites. Some basic rules that I follow:

• If someone sends me a file by email or IM I ignore it unless it was send by a friend of mine.
• I download software from reputable download sites who scan the files before they put them online
• I do not use P2P software, nor IRC, nor IM
• The system itself has to be up to date with the latest security patches. This is also important for the third party software installed.

I do download an Antivirus software from time to time, update it, let it scan my entire system and uninstall it afterwards. What do you use to secure your computer system ?

Let me explain my security concept and ask some questions about yours afterwards. The most important part in my security concept is my knowledge. I know what I should do and what I should not do on the Internet. I know how phishing emails look like, I know when I should be doubtful of files that I want to execute and I do know how to select passwords that can not be bruteforced in a short period of time.

Firewall:

I do rely on a hardware firewall that is properly configured keeping many attacks away from my computer. I do however run no software firewall because I think this is a) not necessary because of the hardware firewall and b) could lead to attacks that are not there without it. Every piece of software installed on my system is a potential way to hack my system.

Anti virus:

I use the free AntiVir as a virus scanner. This is probably not the best choice in the world but good free scanners are rare. I keep it running all the time with automatic updates. Nothing compared to commercial products that update once every 30 minutes but good enough to react on all threats that make it on my system. My Knowledge prevents most possible ways of attacking my system with viruses and trojans anyway.

Encryption:

I have two hard drives with more than 500 gigabytes of encrypted data using the excellent Open Source software True Crypt. This is important to prevent local access to my files as long as the hard drives have not been mounted.

Spyware:

Something that I feel is overrated. I tend to run Ad-Aware and Spybot every other week to scan my system but I normally find some tracking cookies, that is all.

Rootkits:

The same can be said for Rootkits. I tend to use Rootkit Revealer or other products to check my system for rootkits but only occasionally. I would never put a Sony CD into my Computer anway ;)

Browsing, Email:

No Microsoft products if possible. I do use Opera and Firefox for web surfing and Thunderbird as my main email client. Both browsers are more secure than Microsofts Internet Explorer and Outlook. Maybe because they are better products, maybe because hackers like to concentrate on Microsoft products because more users are using them.

Did I leave something out ? What is your security concept ? Let me know, I like to read about software or tips that I never thought about in first place.