PC security, NSA-style: 7 tips from the spymasters

September 24, 2013

Was it really just a few months ago that your biggest computer-privacy concern was making sure your employer didn’t find the college photo of you sucking on a beer bong on your Facebook page? That seems cute now. With the recent revelations that the National Security Agency may have been involved in everything from spying on U.S. residents to cracking online encryption to collecting global financial data, computer privacy has taken on all the cloak-and-dagger intrigue of a John le Carré novel. If you’re like most users, you take your privacy seriously. So we went right to the experts—the NSA itself—and pored over the agency’s security tips and recommendations for its Department of Defense and intelligence-community customers. From there, we identified seven measures that both consumers and small businesses can easily implement to protect themselves from hackers and cybercriminals—and perhaps even from the NSA. Enable automatic software updates It isn’t the coolest counterintelligence technique, but good security starts with the basics, and nothing is more basic than making sure that your operating system is up-to-date. So it’s no surprise that the NSA recommends enabling automatic updates in Windows. Doing so is easy enough: First, simply navigate to System and Security from the Windows Control Panel. Click Turn automatic update on and off, and select Install updates automatically. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2048974/pc-security-nsa-style-7-tips-from-the-spymasters.html#tk.rss_howto