How many times do you sit down at your computer and think about patches and security updates on your own PC?  Probably not all that often.  Well, make today patch and security update day!

• Go to Windows Update and makes sure you have all the latest critical patches installed.  If you are running without some publicly available security fixes, you DESERVE to have someone take over your machine via a security flaw
• Update your Anti-Virus.  Even if you use an automatic updater, make sure it’s been connecting and getting the latest and greatest stuff.  I personally use AVG AntiVirus – the Free Edition.  Works great!
• Update your Anti-Spyware program.  I personally like Spyware Blaster because it doesn’t run all the time, taking up system resources.
• Download Microsoft’s Baseline Security Analyzer and scan your system.  This great little tool will scan Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 machines looking for configuration problems and missing patches in IIS, SQL Server, IE, Office, Windows Media Player, Exchange Server, Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC), MSXML, Microsoft Virtual Machine, Commerce Server, Content Management Server, BizTalk Server, Host Integration Server.  Using this I found that I was missing 4 critical Office security updates and that I had too many admin accounts on the box.  I had unnecessary services installed and WAY too many file shares open.  I hadn’t run IIS Lockdown and my SQL Server 2005 Express product wasn’t configured correctly for security.  Lots of holes!
• Check your Windows Security Center to make sure your three critical services are up and running – AutoUpdate, Firewall, and AntiVirus.  If these aren’t set to ON, fix it now.  If you can’t find your Security Center under Start/Program Files/Accessories/System Tools, install XP SP2 (not sure which 2000 or 2003 patches get you this)

Doing all of these things will help make your computer part of the solution to rampant computer viruses and spam instead of part of the problem.  If you administer more than one machine, do these things on EVERY machine you own.  Security is your responsibility and affects many people beyond yourself.

— Matt Ranlett

posted with BlogJet