InformationWeek had an article about a recent survey of security and IT folks at the RSA conference which showed that one-third don't secure their home files or communications. PKWare, the security company that performed the survey stated "86% of more than 100 respondents were very concerned or extremely concerned about their confidential personal information falling into the wrong hands" but yet a third of them didn't use the tools or software to protect the data. Come on- that's terrible. If you're in the security industry you are much more aware than the typical IT person, understand the risks and know there are open source (free) tools anyone can use to protect your PCs. Most of the tools, if not all of them, are easy to use and require nothing more than a couple points and clicks.
Here's a quick and dirty list of tools people should use at home to protect their home networks, office and PCs:
- AVG Anti-virus
- TrueCrypt Disk Encryption
- Ad-Aware SE Personal
- SpywareBlaster
- TrojanHunter (Not Free)
- ZoneAlarm
Outside of those, everyone should be using encryption on their wireless (WPA2 or WPA not WEP) and should be using some sort of hardware firewall/gateway between your Cable/DSL modem and your PCs. Encryption on your wireless network is free and a HW firewall ranges can range from $50 to $150 at your local electronic store. That's definitely a small price to pay to protect your PCs and data.
