It wasn’t too long ago when I was hit by a virus.  I work from home and depend on my laptop to complete my jobs and send them off to my clients, so the virus really hit me hard.  I managed to lose all my work to date as well as vital accounts and all sorts of other bits and pieces which were vital.  The worse thing was I hadn’t backed up my laptop for about six months so there was no way of getting my data back.

If you use a laptop for work or for pleasure it’s so important to protect it against viruses. You can pick them up from anywhere, websites, emails, downloads even on social media websites.  The risk is high so here are a few tips to help you keep your pc or laptop as healthy as possible.

• Install a decent anti-virus software and keep it updated. There are free software packages which will protect you to a point as well as more expensive ones, but go on reviews rather than the price tag. The most important thing to do is set up a scheduled scan each week or more frequently depending on how much you use it and allow for automatic updates. The updates will help to protect you against the latest viruses to be released.
• Back up frequently. Ever since I lost everything I have a habit of backing up my information once a week. I purchased a removable hard drive with plenty of space and also have some cloud storage for data which doesn’t need to be kept quit as secure.
• Use a quality email provider who will actively help you to reduce the amount of spam that enters your inbox. Spam often has malware and spyware and occasionally can include more serious viruses.
• If you download things such as films and images ensure you scan the download before you open it. Always download from trusted sites, peer to peer sharing is often illegal and it is a great way for viruses to be spread quickly.

If you do have an infection you may need to replace your hard drive which is what I ended up doing. This doesn’t need to be expensive and replacing the drive is surprisingly easy.  If you need any help always contact the people who know what they are doing rather than guessing as you don’t want to make things worse before they get better.

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