Re: The importance of Securing Your Home Computer

Jason Edwards wrote:

2. If for some reason an external firewall cannot be used then make sure the PC
is not offering services to the Internet.

Why only then? Any serious firewall concept involves host security. Your
security should never fail just because the firewall went down.

Beside that most NAT boxes don't do a proper job denying unrelated
inbound traffic.

5. Make sure ALL software on the PC has all the latest security updates. A visit
to http://update.microsoft.com will be required, as will a visit to other
software vendors as required.

This won't help against IE, OE, WMP, MS Office, certain IM messengers,
mIRC, Skype, ... - better also make sure not use such defective software
as well.

6. Backup the new PC before installing anything, and at regular intervals
afterwards.
http://www.google.com/search?&q=norton+ghost
I don't recommend Norton home-user products except that one.

I don't recommend this one either, as the bundled Symantec garbage will
mess up your computer. What about DriveImage or TrueImage? Or what about
dd | diff | gzip for the very simple (and therefore pretty reliable)
way? What about file-based incremental backups?

I don't use anti-spyware products because whenever I run
http://www.safer-networking.org/ it never finds anything except irrelevant
cookies.

Huh? It should find some irrelevant changed settings and some irrelevent
misc. stuff as well. ;-D

I don't use virus scanners because they cannot see into the future.

What about host-based intrusion detection? Just that for competent users
the effect will be pretty negligible.
.