Windows Security

I have honed my 'be safe on Windows' presentation down to basically these five points, in order of importance (most important first):

1. Think about what you are agreeing to. Take the time to read the dialogs that present themselves to you. If it looks hinky, don't agree to it! If you don't know what it means, don't agree to it! There's always someone you can ask. NOTE: if you're installing warez, you're basically agreeing to let unethical people into your computer. 'nuff said.
2. Turn on autoupdates, and just freakin' reboot when it tells you to.
3. Enable the Windows Firewall.
4. Run nonadmin. Seriously. In two weeks, you will not think it was so hard after all.
5. Use strong passwords.

The items in red are the ones which require changes in your own habits and skills. And yes, you will feel clumsy at the very beginning of your attempts to put these habits in place.

I tell people that if they do this, they can remove all the other security products they have installed, and are tired of maintaining. It is a good idea, but not 100% mandatory, to scan using one of the webscanners every so often. http://safety.live.com or http://housecall.antivirus.com are two good and easy to remember scanners.

I usually then tag up with a short lecture about backup, cautioning that all. disks. fail. eventually.

Finally, if more badguy hackers would follow RFC 3514, we'd all be in better shape. Standards-based malware, now!