Security Sin 7 – expert opinion
jjones | Guides | 19/01/2009 10:36am
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When we say, ‘cleaning personal data’, what does ‘cleaning’ mean? Information from the websites you visit is stored on your computer and recorded in hidden Windows Vista locations. Your online activity can be recovered from the temporary files, cookies, the Registry and the index.dat file. Web browsers only provide partial privacy protection by allowing some temporary Internet files and cookies to be deleted, but they do not clean data out of all the hidden files nor do they delete the data securely.
Is deleting files enough?
No. Many computer users and even businesses (particularly small to medium ones), don’t realise that even if they delete files, empty the Recycle Bin and format the hard drive, that the data can still be recovered using certain products. The bleach free space and shredder tools within Desktop Maestro are ideal security features to protect against data mining and ID theft that can occur from old, discarded PCs.
Files are safely stored on my PC. How can criminals get hold of this?
No files are ‘safely stored’ on your PC, regardless of whether you’re connected to the Internet or a network. There are numerous methods by which criminals can make their way onto your computer to steal your information. The most prevalent is through various tricks in which criminals attempt to dupe you into downloading a threat onto your PC. Some threats are installed via security holes so that a user might get infected by visiting a malicious website or by opening a PDF. Once a threat gets through, it may recover an FTP password to infect or deface your personal website, or it may even encrypt your personal files and ask for a ransom to decrypt them.
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