Brian Gongol
A few things you should do to update your computer right now:
- Update Adobe Acrobat Reader. They found a security hole on August 16th and a patch is available. Get the Adobe update.
- Update Firefox to version 1.0.6. A security hole was recently fixed. Get the Firefox update.
- Stay off Internet Explorer as much as possible. They have a pretty serious security problem that hasn't been fixed.
- Update your antivirus protection and run a full scan of your computer. A bunch of worms were released over the weekend.
- Create an "Administrator" account for your computer (if you use Windows) and then use a separate account with "Limited Access" for your regular use. You probably have everything running under a single user account right now, with full "Administrator" rights. By adding a separate "Administrator" account to your computer and only using it when necessary (for instance, to download and install new software), you can run everything else under "Limited Access", which helps prevent major damage in case your computer becomes infected with a virus. Many (if not most) viruses need "Administrator" access in order to do serious damage. If you aren't running your computer in that mode, they can't do much harm.