Dorm Room Security, Staying Safe While at College

Back to School, Securely

Fall is a beautiful time of the year. Starting the school year is an unfortunate side-effect. Here are some tips you can immediately put into action on keeping your information secure and keep doing them all through-out the semester. These tips will keep your information safe from prying eyes, and your stuff safe from dorm room pilfering.

Protect Your Computer. The basics: spyware, virus infection, firewall. Windows XP comes with a firewall that does a rudimentary job of protected privileged ports on your operating system. There are several free ones available that also do a great job (Sygate Personal Firewall, ZoneAlarm Free). Install it on your computer before you ever enter the campus. Keep in mind that a firewall can also prevent legitimate or necessary traffic from entering your system. Be sure to monitor your firewall's logs for activity the first few days especially. You don't want to block the campus' DNS or DHCP network services - crippling your online access. Spyware is defeated mostly by being smart - don't download or run anything that you don't completely need and understand. Beware of desktop enhancements: those cute little programs running around your desktop with animations or showing you the weather may also be leaking your online network activity to questionable marketing firms. There are also several good anti-spyware programs (Windows Defender, Ad Aware Personal) available to help. Do not use any anti-spyware from an unknown source since many online ads are floating around now that remove some spyware while installing others. Virus protection is also a concern. There are also many products available from free to expensive. Free ones include Antivir Personal, Avast! Home Edition, AVG Free Edition. Check with the helpdesk or service center of your University to see if they have a site licensed version which will allow you to use a commercial product for free.