10 Tips Small Businesses Can Use To Avoid Viruses, Spam And Spyware

Viruses, spam, spyware and other malware cost small businesses billions of dollars each year in lost productivity, stolen identities and IT support costs.
What small businesses need to understand is that these gremlins are easy to avoid when common sense and some simple precautions are applied. And avoid is the key word; your strategy should be to stay as far away from these things in the first place so that you dont have to experience the lost time and cost associated with cleaning up the mess they leave.
So how can a small business avoid viruses, spam, and spyware?
The following is a list of 10 best practices for small businesses:
1.Use antivirus software that is automatically updated on all machines
2.Use a hosted spam filtering service that filters the spam before it ever makes it to your local network
3.Make sure employees know that you have a policy that work computers are only to be used for work purposes
4.Dont give your business email address to a non-business source
5.Dont forward jokes, chain mail, etc. to other employees
6.Never open an attachment from an unknown source
7.Never open an attachment with an unknown file extension
8.Dont download free toolbars, shopping assistants, weather bug, etc. on your work computer
9.Never give your information or download information from an unknown site
10.Never update banking or other sensitive personal information using a link sent to you via email always navigate directly to the site and log in there.
As you can see, most of these tips dont require you to buy anything or use any special technology. Viruses, spam and spyware prey on human nature curiosity, laziness, etc. to get past technology-based defences, so you must educate yourself and your employees to know what to avoid.
One last tip: if you do feel like you have a virus or something else attacking your computer, unplug it from your network immediately. The last thing you want to do is give it to everyone else in your office thats when things get really expensive.