Understanding security controls for your pc

Understanding security controls for your pc
Practical Assignment:
Understand security controls for your pc.

Purpose:
• To gain awareness of security controls currently available to personal computer users
• To identify the security controls that are currently installed on your personal computer
• To identify the security controls that are currently enabled on your personal computer
• To improve the security of your computer

Our discussion on the topic of security attacks hopefully makes you want to rush home and do this assignment as quickly as you can.

The assignment is to inventory the security controls that are currently installed on your personal computer and analyze the state of security of your pc. You may have some controls in place, but not up-to-date. You may have some controls installed on your computer, but not currently enabled. There may be some controls that are recommended for secure operations of your pc, but you don’t have them. After you determine your current state of the security of your pc, you will write a recommended course of action to harden the pc; i.e., to add or modify the controls, as well as your usage behaviors, to make the computer more secure.

The grade for this assignment will not be based on your computer’s current state of security (or insecurity). Rather, you will be graded on your analysis of the current state of your security controls and your recommendations for the improvement of the security of your system.

Among the security controls that should be analyzed are:
1. Operating system (OS)
2. Passwords and password strength
3. Encryption
4. Anti-Virus (AV)
5. Anti-Spyware
6. Adware
7. Firewall
8. Wireless security
Address the security controls in the list above and describe how the security of your system can be improved; for example, if your AV signature file is out of date, the appropriate improvement is to update it and run a complete system scan. If you have a weak password on your system, the recommendation is to change it to a strong one.