Many of us involved in ecommerce choose to work from home - it 's a comfortable environment, we can dress the way we want, save time and money in travel and be close to our loved ones.
But if the computer you use to run your online business is the same one your children use for homework and general surfing, this is potentially a very dangerous situation.
A recent security survey reported that 20% of home PC 's are infected with viruses and over 80% contained spyware and adware. Frightening figures.
The following are a few anti-hacking tips that will help in keeping your business systems secure.
Don 't ignore operating system updates
Practically every day, some new security flaw is found in the most critical aspect of your business - the operating system on which all your other software runs. While it 's a major pain in the butt to apply updates and patches so regularly, especially if you access the web via dialup, it 's nonetheless of vital importance not to put off performing these tasks as part of regular maintenance.
Don 't wait to be alerted via mainstream media of problems that have been discovered - more often than not, these notifications will be delayed. As a part of your daily routine, it 's wise to visit the software vendors ' site and keep abreast of any critical security updates. In the case of Microsoft, you 'll need to go to the Windows Update site.
Anti-virus software used *properly*
Install anti-virus software and ensure that it 's regularly updated - this is of the utmost importance. Many times I have come across people who believe that because an anti-virus program is installed, they are protected, yet the last time the virus data file was