We focus a lot on ergonomic computing and keeping a safe physicality during your hours online and at work.  Today we are going to talk about something a bit more technical, i.e. keeping a safe computing environment for your home, office and sensitive information from a technical perspective, including technical aspects such as electrical hookups, virus scanning and malware, as well as computer backups and disaster recovery.  Let’s begin!

Electrical Hookups/Surge Protectors

This point is a obvious one to any network engineer or IT professional, but it isn’t that obvious to the regular person who just uses computers for work or fun.  Surge protectors and UPS systems (no, not the shipping company, a “Uninterruptible Power Supply“) are one of the core features of a safe computing environment when you talk about large scale networks and office environments.  Tripping a switch and having an entire companies computer systems go down can be absolutely catastrophic for a business, so steps must be taken to safeguard against this.  UPS systems provide this type of safeguard because they will automatically revert to a backup power source should the main power get cut off.

They also function as a surge protector to avoid sudden surges of electric current that can damage your computer and it’s hardware/peripheral components.  Things such as lightening strikes, electrical storms or faulty electrical work in the home or office (more on that below) can send dangerous levels of current through your circuits and potentially damage them.

Properly wiring in your home or office is always crucial, but there isn’t much you can do about that unless you are an experienced electrician.  Usually older buildings or houses can be a big culprit of this, and are often victim of terrible electrical fires.  We spoke to a Greg from Winnipeg electricans, who has worked in the industry for over 20 years, and he had some words of warning:

“Working in this industry, you see a lot of scare hook ups and wiring.  I once saw a landlord that replaced their circuit breakers with copper bolts.  If there was a power surge it would have went straight through the tenants TV, toasters, you name it.  It could have killed someone.  Know what type of wiring and electrical systems you have in your home and office, and if you don’t know, get an expert to look at it for you.”

If you live in a modern building you likely won’t have to worry about copper bolts in your circuit breakers, but it doesn’t hurt to get it checked out!

Malware/Virus Detection

Once you are protection of electrical surges and power failures, next you need to protect your systems from unwanted “intrusion”.  Make sure to install the latest versions of a reputable malware/virus detection system (such as McAfee or Norton) and this should protect the regular user from standard, everyday threats.

For a commercial business you will want to step it up a notch to a full blown “Intrusion Detection System”.  This is usually a big piece of hardware that lives on your network and essentially acts as a type of firewall.  They have all different types of IDS and IPS (“Intrusion Protection Systems”) on the market, some even have other features like E-mail Spam Filtering and Content Filters (for bad/unwanted websites).  If you are a small business you can likely get a decent IPS for under $2,000, which compared to enterprise level systems is quite a deal!

Automated Backups and Disaster Recovery

If all else fails, keep a backup.  If you computer gets fried, breaks down or even gets stolen, having a backup can save the day.  For commercial endeavors this is absolutely crucial, as your entire business could be contained in our computer system.  For a home environment you probably just have to worry about backing up any important documents (such as tax forms and other legal forms) and items with sentimental value (family pictures, stuff like that).

Thankfully there newest trend in computing is “the cloud”, i.e. storage and applications that reside entirely on Internet servers.  If you use an iPhone, you likely have iCloud, which automatically backs up your images, contacts, etc.  While this presents a type of security vulnerability, it’s quite useful and “regular people” probably don’t need to worry about having your photos hacked.  For commercial endeavors you will want to utilize a service like Carbonite which provide secure backups of your files.  There are numerous different providers for this service, so do some research and see which one is best for you.

So that’s it, if you follow those 3 steps you will be well on your way to protecting your computer systems from all types of mishaps and mayhem, malicious or otherwise.