PC Maintenance and Security Lab

For this Lab, it was the first time that I had visited Atomic Learning to view available tutorials. After this Lab, I will definitely be visiting this site many many more time! There was a wealth of information and wonderful snippets of information that were very useful and concise. I am interested to explore the available topics soon and learn some more! But first, my responses to the Lab assignment. I had to view three tutorials under the PC Maintenance and Security section. I choose one about Spyware, one about Firewalls, and one about ActiveX controls. I chose these because these were items that I was least familiar with and wanting to know more about.

First Tutorial:

1. Which tutorial did you choose?

"Downloading and Setting up SpywareBlaster"

     2. What was one thing you learned that you will definitely be sharing with others?

It was a simple and effective tool to help protect your browser and therefore your system.

     3. Was there any information that surprised you?

It didn't require a lot of tweaking. It had a "Protect All"-type option that allowed you to accept all of the recommended settings for both Internet Explorer and Mozilla.

Second Tutorial:

1. Which tutorial did you choose?

"Explaining what Firewalls Do and Don't Do"

     2. What was one thing you learned that you will definitely be sharing with others?

Hardware firewalls do not block virus installations.


     3. Was there any information that surprised you?

Software firewalls give many different warnings as to if a program is trying to connect to the Internet and if a hacker is trying to break through your firewall.

Third Tutorial:

1. Which tutorial did you choose?

"Learning about ActiveX Controls"

     2. What was one thing you learned that you will definitely be sharing with others?

Crackers use them to exploit security holes in Web browsers.

     3. Was there any information that surprised you?

They were created by Microsoft as a convenience tool for Internet Explorer but have proven to be a concern right from their introduction because of crackers/hackers being able to easily compromise them.