Tezzo's Technology Blog

Batten down the hatches It's a tough, insecure world out there, fellow PC faithful. Times have never been scarier, with website data breaches turning into regular affairs, programming flaws like Heartbleed popping up left and right, and botnets like Gameover Zeus infecting a legion of PCs, only to gobble the up personal information and financial data stored within. Good news: There's a lot that regular PC users can do to protect themselves against the worst of the worst. But bad news: Most of us don’t bother. More at:   PCWorld :

Ensure that the data on your old drives is safe from prying eyes with this simple guide to securely wiping your hard drives. The siren has sung and you've finally succumbed to her call: You're the proud owner of a shiny new PC; a faster, better SSD; or a bigger, better hard drive. It's time to toss your old equipment in the trash and start playing with your new toys, right? Not so fast. More at:  PCWorld :

"A modern PC leads a kind of dual life. On the one hand, it serves as an entertainment center, offering access to games, online videos, and the entire Internet. On the other hand, it acts as a tool for collecting, creating, and storing important information of all kinds. If your computer is lost, busted, or stolen, switching to a new one has little effect on the entertainment side. But unless you've properly protected the personal data on that system, a theft or loss could become a data disaster. How can you head off such a disaster? Here are some hot ideas." More at:  PCMag.com :

Is your Wi-Fi network at home password-protected? If not, it should be. You might not care if your neighbors use your Wi-Fi connection to surf the Web, but someone with more sinister motives could take advantage of your generosity (and lack of protection) to gain access to data stored on your home PCs. The easiest way to guard against Wi-Fi interlopers is to encrypt your Wi-Fi network. Afterward you'll have to enter a password whenever you connect to your Wi-Fi network, but that's a small price to pay for improved security. Most Wi-Fi routers support WEP, WPA, and WPA2 encryption standards. Be sure to use either the WPA or WPA2 encryption settings, which provide a much higher level of security than WEP encryption. Another safeguard is to set your router not to broadcast the SSID (your network's name). With SSID broadcasting disabled, your wireless network won't be visible to computers nearby, and only people who specifically know your network's name will be able ...