We’ve talked a lot about computer viruses and malware in the past but now is the time to finally talk about how you can protect your system from being infected by a virus or malware.
As a business, it is very important to protect your computers from virus infection because it will instantly expose your official data to hackers and scammers. While we love helping our clients clean their systems and keep them well protected from viruses, we feel it is important to educate them as well.
Below we have 3 expert tips on preventing malware and viruses from taking over your system. But before we begin, it is important to know the difference between both.
What is a Malware
- Malware is a malicious program that infects a PC, Mac or Linux powered machine in order to disrupt or deny the operation. It can also gain access to system resources and gather crucial information.
Malware needs to be removed via tools different from an anti-virus because they are unable to detect and remove them on their own.
What is a Computer Virus?
- A computer virus is a software that copies itself into a PC, Mac, or Linux machine. It can be easily transmitted from the internet, through a USB flash drive, external hard drive, and even your local area network.
A virus, just like malware will disrupt your system or gather data for hackers. It can also slow down your system to the point that it will become unable to optimally operate a computer.
- A virus must be dealt with quickly because if not, it will spread throughout your internal IT infrastructure and can infect every single machine in your office.
How to Prevent Virus and Malware Infection
- Malware and viruses can be prevented from entering your system in many ways. Generally, the first step is to have a good anti-virus and anti-malware software running on the systems at all times.
Here are three more ways you can prevent them from infecting your computers.
Keep Your Computers Updated
- Many companies don’t realize how important it is to have an updated operating system. Unfortunately, some businesses are even running outdated operating systems on their machines such as Windows XP and Windows 7.
Microsoft, Apple, and other operating system companies release security updates frequently to ensure that your system is equipped with the right anti-virus definitions and the internal resources of the system are strong enough to fight back sophisticated malicious software.
- Keep in mind that hackers keep updating their viruses so make sure your system is also up to date at all times. Avoid using an outdated operating system regardless of what device you have.
Scan Email Attachments
- Most of the communication that takes place in a professional typically go through email. Make sure that you have software running in the background that constantly scans the email and any attachments within it.
A very common technique to infect a system with a virus is to send a scam email with an attachment or an external link to a malicious website. Once the user downloads the attachment or clicks the link, the virus downloads itself and infects the system. So always scan your emails no matter what.
Back up Your Data
- This is should be very obvious for a company that depends on data to function. If you have crucial data, you must back it up. You can have your data backed up on an external system, a NAS drive, or even on the cloud.
For more sophisticated data backup services, get in touch with Outsource My IT Today. If you’re not protecting your data with automated, secure backup, your business is at risk. That’s why data backup and recovery services are just as important as any other cybersecurity solution.
Outsource My IT offers several backup solutions to address different industry-specific challenges. All backup solutions that we implement have an offsite and an onsite component. Your offsite backup component is for major catastrophes, and your local onsite backup is for quick restores. All of the backup solutions that we provide also use encryption keys to make certain that critical data is safe and secure.
