Today the internet is often a minefield of malicious code aiming to damage or even obliterate your PC. Hackers would like to have access into your PC for both fun and revenue. You need to be conscientious in your capability to uncover and also protect your valuable computer data.

Understanding of what hackers are searching for, what doors they use to gain entry to your computer and what programs are available that will help you in shielding your PC against all dishonest entry will give you greater satisfaction and guards your important data.

There is three major types of threat to your PC that you need to become alarmed about. The first are viruses. The definition of a computer virus is a a piece of code or a program that is loaded and run on your PC without your knowledge. They can attach themselves to other programs in your PC. Some of them can also reproduce at a an amazing rate and in turn expend a lot of your computer memory. This eventually can cause your PC to break down. You receive Viruses most commonly via email or by downloading programs and files. One method comes in form of .exe files. If you receive an .exe file you must in no way open it unless it has been checked and accepted as harmless by your virus protection program.

Viruses can arrive on your PC in lots of other forms. You need to be careful with flash files, movies, mp3 and in some cases .jpeg files. This is a good incentive to have virus protection software installed on your PC. Organizations like Norton, McAfee (McAfee.com), Trend Micro who make PC-cilliin (trendmicro.com) and Grisoft (grisoft.com) among some others make outstanding virus protection products. Grisoft make AVG Pro which is a competent piece of virus protection software. They have an individual edition which is free to utilize and is very good.

The very next piece of software which is needed to protect your PC is known as a firewall. A firewall is needed to stop illegal access into your computer or network. It can block suspicious data from flowing into your PC and block illegal programs outside of your computer from taking data out of your computer.

Think of the firewall as a doorman whose occupation it is to open a huge protected door. Once the doorman knows who is knocking at the door either by an announcement or because he knows the person, he will allow them in. With the firewall, it will be unlocked only on your permission allowing data to become passed on or received. It learns after a while who's trusted and who's not.

A firewall comes as standard with Microsoft Windows XP (Microsoft.com). But in order for it to safeguard your Computer, it's essential to turn it on. Other solutions are Symantec's Norton Personal Firewall which you can buy by itself or bundled with the Norton Security Suite (symantec.com). McAfee (McAfee.com) also offers an excellent firewall as well as the free version of Zone Labs firewall called Zone Alarm (zonelabs.com).

Finally you must have good spyware software to safeguard against hackers or companies from snooping to find information about you through your internet connection. It is commonly employed by businesses for marketing purposes. Free spyware software which is trusted is Spybot's Search & Destroy (safer-networking.org) or Lavasoft's (lavasoft.com) free version of the Ad-aware spyware application. Spy Sweeper from Webroot (webroot.com) is a superb choice and won't cost very much. Spy Sweeper has received many top reviews from the computer magazines.