{Disarmed} 5 tips to protect your computer from viruses

The FBI recently issued a warning of a computer fraud that began on the phone: You got a call from someone claiming to work for a "big software company." They tell you that the computer is sending them error messages over the internet and that they have detected a virus. But that's not a problem: all you have to do is pay a fee and they will remotely repair your computer by installing antivirus software on it.

Once the caller has your credit card number and access to your computer, however, they no longer remove viruses - they install them.

In October, the Federal Trade Commission cracked down on a similar scam that charged computer users between $ 49 and $ 450 to "remove" malware from their computers. The agency estimates that "tens of thousands" of computer users have fallen for this scam . Protecting against such scams is very simple: don't give strangers your credit card numbers or access to your computer. But let's take a look at five other ways you can protect yourself against viruses and malware:

1. Keep your software up to date

Software manufacturers such as Microsoft and Oracle regularly update their software to fix bugs that could be exploited by hackers. Oracle only released an update to its Java software on Sunday to fix a vulnerability that hackers could have exploited to infect computers with malware.

The software patch came after the Department of Homeland Security released a notice of the vulnerability late last week advising computer users to disable the Java plug-in in their web browsers.

2. Don't click on links in emails

A good rule of thumb is: if you don't recognize the sender of an email, don't click any links in the email. According to Microsoft, 44.8 percent of Windows virus infections are due to the computer user clicking on something.

3. Uses free antivirus software

You don't have to pay for software to protect your computer or an annual subscription to get the latest virus protection. Microsoft Security Essentials is free for Windows users. Avast is another free antivirus.

4. Back up your computer

Do you regularly make backup copies of the data on your computer? If you don't - and 29 percent of computer users fall into this category - you won't be protected from disasters ranging from hard drive failures to a fire in your home. If you value your data, you should back it up. A VPN can also help with this. Using a VPN to unblock Netflix is also an option. It changes the IP address and encrypts the data. There are three basic ways to back up data: an external hard drive, an online backup service, or cloud storage. If you use a service like Google Drive, your files are continuously backed up in the cloud. And the price is right too: up to 5 GB of data is free.

5. Uses a strong password

A strong password is a complex password with a mixture of letters, numbers and symbols. Some people use the same password for everything, but try to avoid this practice.

According to password security company SplashData.com, the three most common passwords are password, 123456 and 12345678. The company recommends that you do not use the same username and password combination for multiple online logins.

Use at least eight characters when creating a password and try to use short sentences separated by spaces or underscores to make them easier to remember; B. "car_park_city?"

The best idea? Use a free service like LastPass to create and manage your passwords. There is only one password you have to remember: the one you use to open your LastPass safe. As soon as you have opened it, LastPass will automatically log you into all websites for which you need a password. It's really handy - give it a try.

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