Better safe than sorry...
It's advisable to take a few basic precautions
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Because your connection is permanent with ADSL, your computers are more susceptible to attacks from the internet. This is not too much of a problem as long as you take some sensible precautions. The notes below are for general guidance - they are not exhaustive and should not be relied upon as your sole source of information!
Many ISPs provide a USB modem with their services, which is much less secure than using a router. This is because you PC is assigned an internet accessible IP address so any services running on it are accessible from the internet. We can't go into an in-depth analysis of this (there are plenty of resources on the web) but in short this can be said to be a "bad thing".
Why a router is best
If you purchase hardware from us, we will supply a router which is much more secure. This is because the router acts as a barrier (a bouncer, if you like) between your PC or network and the internet. Your PC is allocated a non-routable IP so it is impossible to access directly from the internet. In combination with rules setup on the router, you can make your connection acceptably secure. You can use whatever hardware you want, including USB, but we feel the small additional cost of routers is well worth the investment.
Windows Update - just do it!
This isn't the end of the story however. As an absolute minimum you need to keep Windows up to date with the latest security patches - go to Windows Update for info. You can setup your PC(s) to automatically download any updates overnight and then prompt you to install them. This works well, and is highly advisable. And, with your new high speed broadband, the process is quicker and easier than ever.
Want more? Try a firewall...
The steps above are enough for most users, but if you are paranoid or just like experimenting, then you can also download software based firewalls such as Black Ice, Norton, etc. We can't recommend any particular one and some users have reported they are more hassle than they are worth. They can also interfere with things such as email accounts so be sure to read the instructions carefully!
You could also install a hardware firewall - we like the range from Sonicwall (see www.sonicwall.com) but for most users this is overkill.
Stop viruses at source
Virus filtering is absolutely essential these days - our mail servers catch thousands of viruses each day. If you have an external email service (i.e. not provided by us) then you need to either ask your ISP to provide filtering or run your own virus filtering software locally. This may be advisable even if your ISP is providing a service. We like F-Prot (see www.f-prot.com) because it is cheap, reliable, and doesn't take over your machine and slow things down, unlike some other anti-virus software we could mention. If we provide your email, then we provide virus filtering free of charge, so why not move your email to us?
And finally, can spam
Finally, you can consider spam filtering to reduce the amount of clutter in your inbox. In many cases spam can be offensive as well. We provide this service for all email accounts we host - and it works, our customers are invariably impressed by the reduction in spam and the increase in productivity this leads to.
