Digital disease

People get sick by doing one of the following things:
1) A lot of interaction with the public.
2) Poor hygiene.
3) Taking in (eating or drinking) something that's infected.
4) Doing things they frankly shouldn't be doing in the first place.

Computers get viruses, worms and trojans for the same reasons.  
1) A lot of interaction with the public.

Social networking is great. And a lot of people friend, follow or add people to their circles that they don’t know in real life. That can be just fine. You should be aware of the risks, though. The more strangers you network with, the more likely it is (intentional or not) that they could send something harmful your way.

2) Poor hygiene.

No need to wash your laptop. Instead, clean it out with a good piece of antivirus software. Norton is popular but there are many others including Sophos and Vipre. If you don’t have these installed and running, you’re just asking for trouble.

3) Taking in something that's infected.

Computers take in programs when you click on something. Whether you’re installing a program that you’ve purchased yourself or you’ve opened an infected email, clicking is the way to get things into your computer. Here’s the thing.; if something looks “wrong” don’t click it. Here are a few examples of things that look “wrong”:

1) Personal emails from strangers.

2) Emails from people you know, but who never send you those kinds of things.

3) Hyperlinks with misspelled werds.

4) Emails from your bank that don’t contain your name.

4) Doing things they frankly shouldn't be doing in the first place.

Elicit or adult websites are poplar. Some accounts say that 25% of all traffic online is for inappropriate material. There are a lot of things wrong with these sites, but one that may surprise people is the amount of malware that comes with the package. Nothing is for free. Either you’ll be exposed to ads or the site will charge you money. In the case of improper webpages, the cost is often an infection by a worm or virus.

So stay safe out there. Keep yourselves and your computers healthy!