University of Advancing Technology's Official Technology Blog

Happy National Computer Security Day! To celebrate this, we are going to go over 4 tips and why they are important to keep your computer safe. We when we look at risk, one of the biggest indicators is what websites you go to and files that are downloaded. This is because when you visit a new website or download a file you add new unknown factors that could be malicious.

First, we are going a website called virus total (https://www.virustotal.com). To scan a new website, you are going to click the “URL” tab and apply enter the website into the URL box. If you have a file that you want to make sure is safe you can click the “File” tab and select the file you want to analyze. After that what this website will do is run it through multiple security vendors detection for free. If that security vendor doesn’t detect anything it will have a green checkmark. If that security vendor detects something malicious it will provide a red explanation point. For a quick reference you will be able to see the top and are looking a full green circle indicating no malicious activity was detected.

The next common issue that can happen is having outdated software updates. Updates not only add new features to software they also include updates to security for the software. This is because people are finding new ways to break software and gain access to computer so developers will have to fix these issues though software patches. One of the most important software to update on your computer is your operating system and your web browser. The good news your operating system will automatically update on its own. For your web browser this can generally be done by going the help section at the top and then clicking the update button.

Another tip to make your computer more secure is uninstall programs that you don’t use. This is because the more programs you have on your computer the more likely one could have a security flaw that could compromise your computer. This concept is referred to attack surface where you reduce the openings for attacks. The benefit to this tip is that it will also improve the performance and free up some storage.

The last thing that is vulnerable to cyber-attack is you the person reading this. Instead of using a technology to break into your computer some people will try to email or call you to try to convince you to let them into your computer. The first defense against this is taking time and not rushing on making a decision. The next defense is getting someone else opinion since they will be able to help you determine if something is a scam or not.

Secure your future—literally. Check out UAT’s Cyber Degrees.