There are many ways a person can sabotage their own computers. Whether they are doing it willingly, or unwillingly, people all around the world are sabotaging their own computers daily. So I decided I would let you all in on a few tips of simple computer maintenance that hopefully you already know, but if you don’t, then you need to know.

Choosing a Password

Everyone is told to pick a secure password for there emails, social networks, website profiles, computer networks, etc. But many people don’t know what is secure and what isn’t. Let me straighten that out for you, any word in the English language (or any language for that matter) used in a password is not secure. Hackers have devised many techniques to crack the password case, one of them being a dictionary. That’s right, some hackers will run a program checking to see if any words in your password match up with any and every single word in the dictionary. Just knowing this one fact should startle you. When choosing a password, make sure it’s not just one word. Ideally, you shouldn’t even have a word in your password, it should be something like, ‘kkj34$$#jkj(*&6”, this password would be virtually impossible for anyone to crack. But it’s not reasonable; I mean who would be able to remember that? Which brings me to my next point; since from now on you’ll be using super confusing passwords that no one can crack, make sure you keep a copy of it for yourself somewhere safe (not on your computer).

Using a Firewall

I don’t think most people know what a firewall is, so let me explain it in not so many words. A firewall makes you non-existent to hackers; they hide you so that when hackers scan for unprotected computers, yours doesn’t show up. Seems like a great thing doesn’t it? So why aren’t you using one?! Also, if you somehow already have an intruder on your computer, and it tries to transmit information elsewhere, a firewall will stop it in its tracks and inform you about what happened.

Email Woes

Here are a couple of simple rules about using your email:

1. Don’t send a password to yourself or others through email.
2. Do not open an attachment from an email of someone you don’t know.
3. Do not respond to emails from anyone requesting personal information, especially your financial information.
4. Choose an unbreakable password for your email account!

There are many other dangerous things out there that will help you in your mission to sabotage your computer; computer maintenance and following these tips that I showed you will definitely help in keeping your computer alive and healthy. But fighting hackers is synonymous with the war on drugs, it ain’t gonna go away, so you just have to keep that firewall up, and push on.