Fake Antiviruses and Fake Security Software

I made a small mention of this in my last blog post, but with MacDefender getting a lot of attention lately, I thought I'd write up a bit about this stuff.

Protecting your computer and yourself, with common sense.

In my last post, I explained how to update Windows and Mac OS X, and other programs, to install security updates. I also mentioned some free antivirus and antispyware software that do the job quite well. But even after that, there's still one thing that software can't necessarily protect you from...

Keeping your system patched up and protected

Computers aren't perfect. In fact, they're really stupid and will do exactly what you tell them. If you tell them to make a pizza, they'd do it if they had arms and legs. But, if you tell them to wipe a hard drive, they'll do it. If you tell it to turn off, it'll do it. If you give it some really complicated instructions where you confuse the computer so bad that you've made it through its security checks and can now run whatever code you want, that's an exploit. That's why you need to update your system with the latest security updates and keep it protected against viruses when necessary.