Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
To protect people's privacy, most countries have data protection and privacy laws to control the
access and distribution of this personal information. These laws regulate the companies that hold
our personal information and ensure that all our information is properly protected.
Of course, just because there are laws designed to protect your privacy online does not mean that
you should not take additional steps to keep yourself safe. As a first step, you should determine
what personal information is available online by conducting a search for your name. You should
also take care when using
social media
to avoid sharing information about yourself that would be
better kept private. Another strategy is to delete
cookies
from your computer. That way, no one
can use your cookies in a malicious way.
Strategies for.Improving Security
You can take many steps to improve security. One step is to restrict access to your computer and
data by using strong passwords, applying permissions, and enabling
firewalls
. You can also use
encryption
to scramble the data on your hard drive, thereby preventing others from being able to
read it.
Security is not just about preventing unauthorized access to your data, however. It's also about
protecting your data from damage or loss by storing copies of your data somewhere safe. This
process is called “making a backup,” or “backing up.” You should back up your system on a regu-
lar basis. To do so, you can use the Windows built-in backup utility, called Windows Backup. If
you used Windows Backup to back up the files and folders on your computer, you can restore the
backed-up files and folders in the event of system failure or some other disaster.
It's important that you run the most up-to-date version of your operating system. That way, as
manufacturers fix bugs and patch security holes, you ensure that all the most recent patches are
applied. To make it easier for you to keep your system up to date, Microsoft offers the Windows
Update tool, which performs automatic updates to the operating system. Using this tool, you can
check for new updates, change the automatic update settings, view your update history, and more.
If you want to dispose of data you have on a hard drive, even if only to give your computer to a
friend, you must remove all traces of personal information from the drive. To do so, simply run
a special software program that is designed to permanently erase the contents of your hard drive.
These programs work by writing a series of patterns over the entire disk so that all existing data is
overwritten and cannot be recovered.
Key Terms
bot
botnet
cookie
cyberbullying
database
decryption
denial of service (DoS) attack
encryption
firewall
keylogger
malware
password cracking
phishing
ransomware
rogue Wi-Fi
service pack
social engineering
social network
spyware
Trojan
virus
Windows Update
worm
zombie
