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If you are working on your own, and not part of a company with an IT
department, then you will have to be responsible for keeping your own
machine clean and secure.
Since you are suing Windows XP Pro, this is the standard set of measures I
would recommend
1. Ensure that you have Windows XP Service Pack 2 installed, and ensure that
your machine is set up to receive and install Windows updates automatically.
2. Ensure that the Windows Firewall is on.
3. Ensure that you have anti-virus software installed, that it is kept
regularly up-to-date, and is configured to scan incoming emails. I use AVG
Free Edition available from http://free.grisoft.com
4. Ensure that you have anti-spyware software installed. For this purpose I
use the free versions of Adaware and of Spybot S&D. A Google search will
turn up the locations for both those programs. As the free versions of these
programs do not auto-update and run scheduled scans, you must religiously
adhere to a weekly routine of downloading updates and running scans for both
programs. I have two anti-spyware programs because each one manages to catch
things that the other misses.
5. If you have any doubts about a website you have visited recently or file
you have received, it does no harm to run an additional scan immediately.
Microsoft is running a beta of its own AntiSpyware program which is looking
most promising as it does auto-update and auto scan in the same way that AVG
does. However, I hesitate to recommend using beta software for production
systems.
These measures are of course in addition to the normal advice about
regularly backing up files so that if you do suffer a disaster and have to
rebuild your machine, you can get back up and running with minimal loss of
data.
No platform is completely immune to attack, and while you might feel that
moving to the Mac or Unix because they are less of a target than Windows
because they are less popular, "security by obcurity" is not all that much
of a guarantee, especially if their popularity increases. You will probably
be better off ensuring that you have a well-designed security and backup
regime for your Windows system.
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