According to Walt (2005), in computing, the Windows platform is vulnerable to being attached by digital criminals, whose daily activities involve, looking for ways to spy on various users and in most cases to corrupt the data stored in their computer hard drives. These criminals use various programs such as spyware, spam, and computer viruses to achieve their goals. This is unlike other computing platforms such as Apple’s Macintosh with which users experience little spyware or not at all (Walt, 2005).
The digital criminals can steal a computer user’s identity and access the information that should be a secret to the user. The common type of these digital criminals is the computer hackers who use automated software to scan the Internet as they look for the vulnerable computers to invade or take over surreptitiously. Various computer users encounter a devastating spyware or virus infestation that forces them to spend lots of money in the process of wiping their computer hard drives clean (Walt, 2005).
This cleaning process requires the computer user security programs like computer antivirus, anti-spyware program, and anti-spam software which should be updating in a short time interval for maximum security (Stitt & Keilar, 2003). Windows is usually comprised of a firewall program which is beneficial in keeping out computer hackers. However, it has been found that in most versions of computer operating system, the firewall program is not easy to turn own or configure, therefore, necessitating for the use of such programs like anti-spyware, anti-spam, and computer antivirus.
Programs like computer spyware are considered to be in their stage of infancy, and therefore, a computer user is advisable to install more than two different anti-spyware programs in the same computer. A web browser that is installed in one’s computer also determines a lot as far the invasion of malicious software is concerned. For instance, Mozilla Firefox is considered safer than Microsoft Internet Explorer (Walt, 2005).
A computer virus is defined as a malicious software that digital criminal use to attack a user’s computer system by corrupting the data in the hard drive or blemishing useful computer programs. The most devastating effects of the computer virus include losing all the stored data and malfunctioning of the installed computers programs (Walt, 2005). The invasion of computer viruses can be prevented in various ways which include the use of appropriate computer antivirus, ignoring the email attachments from strangers, and using appropriate web browsers like Mozilla Firefox.
The computer antivirus should be updates constantly so that it can detect and wipe out the most recently designed viruses. According to Walt (2005), the most important type of security is the use of Apple’s Macintosh as a computing platform because it uses a unique operating system, known as OS X, on which no successful virus has been reported. According to Lu (1992), the Apple’s Macintosh is relatively more expensive than the Windows platform.