How to Secure Your Home Computer

By Craig Larscheid, SANS GIAC Certified Professional

Regardless of how a home computer is used, there are a number of items that need to be addressed in order to protect your privacy and data. Microsoft has put a great deal of emphasis on operating systems that are easily configured, play well with 3rd party applications, and create little or no headaches for end users. "Easily configured" and "no headaches", however, usually imply loose security settings that need to be hardened or tightened up. This does indeed seem to be the case with Microsoft, as illustrated in a Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine article from October 19, 2002. In the article, "Microsoft Says Security Emphasis is Paradigm Shift", author Matt Migliore writes about comments made by Microsoft senior vice president for Windows, Brian Valentine, 'With previous versions of Windows Server, Valentine said security wasn't a primary concern. "Originally, the focus was getting people on the network, not keeping people off it." The ability to quickly deploy Microsoft solutions does indeed have its merit, but obviously has detracted from the security of the operating system. With this in mind, the scope of this article is centered on taking a freshly installed Microsoft Operating System and tightening the configuration and installing additional security software to achieve as much system security as possible.

NOTE:  If securing your computer seems daunting and the steps in this guide are too advanced, skip to STEP 5 and consider at least installing a product like ZoneLabs ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite, which will provide a firewall, virus protection, spyware protection and email worm protection.  Configure the products to automatically update against new threats, configure your operating system to automatically update itself with patches (See STEP 4 – Update Patch Levels and Configure Windows Update), and you will have minimum data and privacy protection.