Protecting Yourself from Spyware

I wish there were a single button that I could tell you to push (or piece of software that I could tell you to install) that would instantly protect your computer so that you'd never get hit with a single piece of spyware again. Unfortunately, spyware protection isn't quite so simple, and it involves a number of different tasks. You'll hear computer security professionals calling this "defense in depth," which just means that you have several different layers of defenses set up on your computer. Think of your computer as the cash vault inside of a bank. If someone wants to steal all of the money out of the vault at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, they'll have to do a number of things:

• Get past the security guard at the front door.

• Get past the teller windows separating the vault from the customer area.

• Get past the security guard at the outside entrance to the vault.

• Open the door to the outside entrance.

• Crack the door to the inside entrance.

• Make it back out past all of these same obstacles, all without being stopped by a security guard or an off-duty cop waiting in the teller line.

Creating defense in depth for your home computer works in much the same way you want to create protective layer upon protective layer that will make it as difficult as possible for spyware to gain a foothold on your PC. The toughest question is: where do you start? For the rest of this book, I'll walk you step-by-step through the things you can do to protect yourself from spyware and other types of malicious software. Some of the advice will be technical in nature: install this piece of software or configure that option in your web browser. But I'll also offer some tips that go beyond where to click your mouse. I'll point out some human pitfalls that sometimes cause people to expose themselves to malicious software unnecessarily, and how to avoid falling into these same traps.