Introduction For many motels, computers are a critical part of their business especially with the huge growth seen in internet booking. Unfortunately few motels know how to properly secure their computer and thus they are prone to viruses and other problems which can severely affect the motel's operation or reputation. This short guide tells you what steps you need to take to ensure your computer is secure and virus free. The Threats Modern viruses can be spectacularly effective at destroying your computer. I once had a virus on my computer that slowly deleted all my data; in addition it had disabled all my anti-virus and firewall software and even changed Windows so that if I deleted the infected files and re-booted my computer it would still be there! If that was not enough it was busily sending out copies of the virus to all the people in my address book.. In the end the only solution was to reformat my hard disk and set my computer up from scratch; this took me about 2 days to get back fully up and running - luckily I had a good backup! The other major threat is that of someone remotely accessing your computer. This is often an attempt by hackers to find information such as credit card numbers and other personal information that is stored in files and databases. Hackers may attempt to use your computer to host porn or illegal websites or even to use your computer to send spam email and viruses to other computers. They may even use your computer to launch denial of service (DOS) attacks against other websites which can leave you with a huge bill from your ISP! What You Need To Do: 1. Use An Up To Date Anti-Virus Program Running a good anti-virus program is absolutely essential. We recommend Norton Anti-Virus. You can purchase this for $106.60 online at http://www.symantecstore.com/ - buying online allows you to download the program and install it which may take some time if you have dial-up internet access. You may be better off buying it from Dick Smith if this is the case. Note: you will only need to buy the basic anti-virus product not the more expensive packages that include all sorts of extras (most of which are not very useful). We also recommend McAfee Antivirus and PC-cillin Antivirus products. Other packages may work but may not be as effective as the ones recommended. It is absolutely essential to regularly update the virus definitions on a regular basis (we recommend at least every day). Norton anti-virus will check every time you logon to the internet and automatically download updates if necessary so this ensures that you are kept up to date with the minimal fuss. Warning: If you don't update regularly then you may as well not bother running ant-virus! 2. Use A Firewall A firewall stops anyone from accessing your computer remotely - if you don't run one then you run the risk of someone hacking into your computer and getting your customer's credit card numbers (which is probably the most valuable thing on your computer in most cases). You can use a hardware or a software firewall (or if you are very paranoid - both!). Hardware firewalls are now becoming commonplace, although for smaller businesses are not strictly necessary - a software firewall will usually suffice.
The good news is that the best software firewall available (and the one we recommend) is completely free of charge - it is called Zone Alarm and is available from www.zonealarm.com Note - you do not need to buy the professional edition the free version does everything that you will need it to do! Once downloaded and installed on your computer (which is relatively quick and painless) it will ask you for permission every time that an external computer wants to access something on your computer or a program on your computer wants to access something externally. The firewall software quickly learns from you what is allowed and what is not. The only problem as such with Zone Alarm is that the alerts that sometimes popup on your desktop can be quite technical, in addition running a firewall may stop some of your existing software from running properly (especially those applications that access external computers and networks using non standard methods). Don't be tempted to use the built-in windows firewall - it only stops incoming attacks and thus only does half of the job required. 3. Keep Your Software Up To Date If you use windows (and most small business do) then ensure that you run windows update on a regular basis (see http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp). This will ensure that your windows installation is kept correctly up to date and therefore makes it a lot more difficult for viruses and external threats to gain access to your computer and data. This will mean a lot of downloading from the internet and some slow down of your computer as a result - you will just have to learn to live with it.
If you are using an Windows 95, 98 or ME then we recommend upgrading to Windows 2000 or XP. The newer operating systems are much more secure by design, plus the older operating systems are often very unstable and are prone to crash your system (particularly Windows ME). Don't run the server versions of windows unless you know what you are doing or have got specialist support. The same goes for internet browsing software - always use the latest versions of browsers - eg you should be using v6 of Internet Explorer, not older versions. Most browsers are free downloads (or freely available on CDs stuck to many computer magazines). You will also find the latest versions of browsers significantly faster than older versions. 4. Avoiding Viruses Avoidance is the best policy, you should not rely on your anti-virus software and firewall to protect you 100% - some viruses become live on the internet and spread so quickly that anti-viruses programs cannot protect you from them. There are a number of ways to avoid viruses: a. Do not install any software on your business computer that is not essential to the running of your business. This especially applies to games and other programs that you may find on magazine CDs or download from the internet. Be very wary of installing software that is not widely known or used. Software that claims to boost the speed of your internet connection in particular is a waste of time and is often laden with Spyware (see below!). b. Never open email attachments - this is the number one source of viruses. Never trust any email from anyone that you don't already know. If in doubt delete the email immediately. Remember that many viruses are spread by the virus going through your email address book and emailing copies of the virus to all your contacts; this means that you shouldn't trust attachments from even your friends! If you must open an attachment then ensure that the file(s) are scanned for viruses first (most anti viruses programs should do this automatically). Be especially aware of joke attachments and other attachments that make wild claims eg Free Internet etc. c. Do not share (or better still avoid using) floppy disks. If you must use floppy disks do not leave them in your computer's disk drive as when you next reboot your computer it may install a virus if the disk is infected. d. When surfing on the internet make sure that if a security box ever pops up that asks you 'is it ok to install ...' then select 'No'. Other than that, surfing is comparatively safe - you generally wont get a virus just by visiting an internet site. 5. Keep Your Computer Physically Secure Keeping your computer physically secure is very important. Don't let anyone else use your computer that you don't know - and especially not guests! Other people using your computer may not be so careful in avoiding viruses and may install all sorts of programs that you don't know about. You may want to consider using restricted access user accounts if you have a number of staff that must use your computer - it is fairly easy to restrict a user so that they can't install any software when logged in. 6. Use Strong Passwords More often than not people choose the names of family members, pets or car registration numbers as their passwords. I have even seen passwords written on post-it notes and stuck to the monitor! Bottom line is that using a weak password is like leaving your front of your house wide open. You can download programs from the internet that will attempt to find your password by going through a dictionary and if that fails by going through every possible password; I have seen this type of program crack passwords in less than a second! We recommend: a. Make your password at least 6-8 characters long - the longer the better b. Do not use any name of any person, pet or otherwise c. Do not use any words that you will find in a dictionary d. Don't just use letters and numbers - the odd * or $ in your password will make it more difficult to crack e. Don't use the same password for everything - in particular use separate passwords for online banking and all the really important things f. Change your passwords regularly (at least every six months or so). Weak password example: n1ck Strong password example: n$+jy273#ty4 The longer and more complicated your password, the more likely you are to forget it - so you may want to make it easier to use by basing it on the first letter of a memorable phrase eg Holiday Guide Is The Best Way Of Booking Online gives you: HGITBWBO - add in some extra characters and you have a good strong password. 7. Other Security Risks a. Never tell your password(s) to anyone else. b. Never type in your credit card details into a website unless you are on an SSL connection - you can tell if you are by ensuring that the website URL begins with https:// and that a padlock icon is displayed in your browser (with Internet Explorer this is displayed in the lower right hand corner of your browser window). c. Whenever you leave your office be sure to lock your screen (in Windows XP you can lock your screen by pressing the windows-L key combination) - you may also want to set your screensaver to automatically lock your screen after 10 minutes or so of inactivity. 8. Backup Backups are essential as no computer is 100% secure from viruses and in any case a hardware failure on your computer could easily result in you losing all your data. We recommend backing up your essential data at least weekly (and even daily if you are a larger business). Organising your files on your computer so that all of the data that you need to back up is all in one place. Rewriteable CDs and even DVDs are now very affordable and are probably the best way of backing up. You may also want to consider storing a copy of your backups in a different building or in a fireproof safe to guard against the risk of fire destroying your valuable data. Note: ordinary safes are not fireproof and will invariably leave your backups as lumps of molten plastic. Lastly, you should test your backups every so often to ensure that you really can restore all of your data - it is fairly common for people to realise that they are not backing up everything that they need! What To Do If You Suspect A Virus On Your Computer Even if you do all 8 points above (and we recommend you do!) then you may still get a virus. It can be difficult to know if you are infected - sometimes your computer might slow down and using the internet is much slower than normal - however in most cases you won't know. Sometimes you may see strange things happening on your screen eg your mouse pointer moving all by itself - this often indicates that your computer is being remotely controlled! If you do suspect a virus then: a. Pull the phone jack (if on a dial-up connection) or the network cable out of the wall. b. Unless you now what you are doing don't touch anything and call someone in who does. Do not turn your computer off unless you suspect that your files are being deleted. Spam Spam is simply unwanted emails, that can flood into your system offering all sorts of goods and services, some illegal, some pornographic. We recommend to just delete spam as it comes in. Do not waste your money on any spam filters and think carefully about switching on spam filtering at your ISP (internet provider). If you attempt to filter spam out then inevitably you will delete genuine emails which could result in lost business! Again, avoidance is the best policy - we recommend: a. Never reply to spam - this will just encourage it! b. Never click on the 'unsubscribe' links at the bottom of emails -this simply tells the spammers that you are a live email address and so will spam you more. c. Avoid using your ISPs email accounts (such as nick@xtra.co.nz) or hotmail or similar accounts. These types of accounts are publically listed as so will be easy targets for spammers. It is much better to use an email address using your business domain name eg stay@alohalodge.co.nz d. Be careful where you list your email address on the internet - quite often the free newsletter you sign up for will result in a torrent of email from other similar companies. Spyware Some programs that you run on your computer (especially 'Shareware' or 'Freeware') will include hidden programs that will access the internet behind the scenes. These programs are known as spyware and are often used to give the software makers information about you. Unfortunately this can include personal information that you may not be so keen on someone else knowing and may also clog your internet connection with the sheer volume of information sent (some spyware programs for instance will report back on every website that you visit!). We recommend that you run a program called 'Ad-Aware' on a regular basis (you can download this from http://www.lavasoft.de/). This standard version of this software is free - the paid versions are not worth the extra money. Always On Internet Connections If you use an always on internet connection (such as Jetstream or any other type of broadband access) then you will be at extra risk from hackers. This is because your computer would make a much better web server for porn / illegal software and be much faster in sending out spam email! This means that you have to be extra careful!!! Summary The best way of securing your computer is to use a multi-layered security approach (as outlined in the steps above). If you are not technically minded and proficient then we recommend getting someone to help you - it may cost you $50 or so for someone to check your system - however it would cost you a lot more in terms of lost time and reputation if a virus did some serious damage. It is not unheard of for some businesses that have been hit by a virus to be billed over $30,000 by Telecom for extra Jetstream traffic caused by a virus..