There are numerous operating system and program settings that can be tweaked in order to better your security profile and increase performance. True system “hardening” is not for the impatient or faint of heart, and may be discussed in a future column; this column will cover only the basics.
With Windows PCs, I like to start with the Windows Startup group. While it may not seem directly related to system security, having a computer that’s running as few programs in the background as possible can contribute to overall system speed and stability. The same goes for Apple Macs, as well.
On a Windows Vista or 7 machine, click the Start button, select Run, and type msconfig (for Microsoft System Configuration), then click the Startup tab. If your Windows 8 computer does not have a Start button, you make want to modify it to have one. The Windows 8 procedure will take you to the Task Manager, but the idea is still the same, which is to have as few things as possible starting up when you first turn on your computer.
Go through the Startup list and think about each item that’s there. Do you really need digital camera software, printer utilities, iTunes, Realplayer, video card managers, Nero or Google Update, to name just a few, constantly running in the background? Not on my watch. About all you really need to be running are your antivirus and firewall programs, and perhaps updaters from Adobe and Java. Search the Web to learn about any strangely named programs that you find in your startup list.
On a Mac, click the Apple icon in the upper-left corner, choose System Preferences and Users & groups. Highlight a user profile and look at the Login Items tab. Rather than hiding login items, I like to remove them by highlighting them and clicking the “minus” symbol at the bottom. That’s about it for a Mac.
With Windows computers, I also like to tweak the Windows services. Go to Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Services. Double-click a service to change its settings. Many services are either dangerous or useless to most users; for the purposes of this article, only a few services will be addressed.
Disable Family Safety, all Function Discovery items (unless you are running a HomeGroup network), Google updaters, IPSEC, NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing, Remote Desktop Help Session Manager, Remote Registry, RunAs Service, Secondary Logon, TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper, Telnet, Terminal Services, and Internet Connection Sharing, for starters. Not all items will be on all computers.
Some antivirus programs also need tweaking for better security. Symantec/Norton products in particular have some very stupid default settings, as do products from McAfee and Kaspersky. Rather than constantly trying to re-apply lipstick on a pig, seriously consider moving to higher-quality products, such as free antivirus products from Avast and Avira, or paid products from Eset and G Data. This goes for Macs, too. Forget that myth that Apple Macs can’t get viruses; they can.