As I googled, I saw an article with the topic, ‘The Three Most Important Security Steps The Small Business Should Take'. It starts by saying that a lot of people will start disagreeing and suggesting more steps should be taken. I wouldn't say that it is some kind of good IT stuffs because it's something which I know and I don't quite agree. Actually, it's not even steps. It's just three things to consider.

Alright. The three ‘steps' are Antivirus Software, Firewalls and OS Patching.

I will start my point now. The reasons to state some topic like this and even provided the three steps should have pointed out the most important steps or things, I would call it. However, I wouldn't comment anything as every mind thinks differently. But I would like to state my three important things too.

Wikipedia - Small Business

A small business may be defined as a business with a small number of employees. The legal definition of ‘small' often varies by country and industry, but is generally under 100 employees in the United States while under 50 employees in the European Union.

I do feel that the small business should be categorized into different categories like Category A - Less than 15 employees and so on. Or maybe they already have.

Here it comes. My three important things would be a server, backup and security tools.

Backup

I treat my home network (even though it's just Mee and me) as important as managing a small business network because we have our own important data such as pictures, mp3s and some documents. It will be headache should I lost all the data or get involve with some viruses.

I have two hard drives; 40GB and 80GB respectively. The 40GB is used for OS while the 80GB is used for data and games. There was once when I decided to switch my XP over to Vista by formatting my existing OS drive and partitioned it into two. However, I tried using FDISK but only to realize that it doesn't recognize NTFS file system. Thus, I used Hiren's BootCD, recommended by my previous manager, to boot up the system and used some DOS NTFS tools to partition the drive. Unfortunately, I deleted all of my partitions including the 80GB which contain all important data. I have previously backup some of the data on DVDs but not the photos and mp3s.

However, I do know that even though I have deleted the partition, the data inside the drive is not deleted yet. Thus, after hours of fiddling, I managed to retrieve the partition and make two partitions too. I've been long-winded but the point is to say that data is very important, therefore, I have changed my way of managing my system ever since.

Now, I have a 250GB external hard disk that manages all my backup data while the 80GB keeps part of it as extra copy. Thus, backup is considered one of my security steps. At least I wouldn't be that worried should I happen to delete my existing partition again. Even though I have mentioned that deleting partition, doesn't mean the data is deleted. However, I will need to take extra care trying to restore the data by creating the right partition. My next mission is to format the 40GB and 80GB hard drives and install dual boot of XP and Vista into the 80GB. Having a backup on the 250GB means having a peace of mind.

Server

A server can help managing the user accounts and acts as a file server. Giving certain privileges and permissions to certain people will restrain employees from installing irrelevant programs or copy data from other sources which may bring viruses. As all the files will be stored in the server, backup will become easier by performing on the server rather than each computer in the network.

The version of Vista that I have is Vista Ultimate. It is considered as one of the most functionalities and most secured version of Vista. As I only have one computer, it is not possible for me to setup Server 2003 on my computer. However, I have restricted my own account from having the full administrator rights. This could prevent spyware or adware from installing automatically. As a normal user account, each software installation will be notified or even blocked without notification.

Security Tools

I consider myself lucky as my computer is often attacked by harmless spyware and adware which are removed successfully without any damage of data or system files. My memory card was infected by virus once when I used it in the previous college where I studied. Fortunately, it was only a memory card.

Security tools that I would recommend are McAfee VirusScan, McAfee SiteAdvisor, and Windows Defender. Windows Defender comes loaded in Vista and so far, it has been able to detect all sorts of spyware and adware which are trying to attack my system. McAfee SiteAdvisor is free for download for both Internet Explorer and Firefox. After installing it, there will be a short bar indicator on the right-bottom of the browser. When googling, there will also be an indicator besides each link. By looking at the indicator, we will know whether the site is harmful or safe to visit. As the old saying, ‘Prevention is better than cure'.

McAfee VirusScan is by far the best antivirus tool that I had used. It's definitely better than Norton Antivirus. From my own experience, each and every files going in and out from my computer will be scan and any harmful files will be automatically deleted or quarantined. My previous experience with Norton Antivirus is that a message box will always come out when a file is infected but most of the time; it can do nothing, not even deleting the file.

As far as I heard about the comments from other IT people that I have conversed before, software firewall is not recommended and hardware technologies are much better. I had used ZoneAlarm before and found that it is not that kind of software that I would expect. The message prompted each and everytime a file or a program tried to access the internet was irritating. Right now, I have a Linksys Wireless Router with simple firewall but I do believe that backup, server control and security tools would be enough to secure my system.

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