Tips on protecting your system from hackers

we use our computers every day to do everything therefore it is important that we keep them protected from viruses and hackers who could steal or damages our systems. here are some tips that could  help achieve that :

• Always update your OS with the last security patches : OS developers always discovering and updating their systems to fix bugs and  security threats therefore, its very important to keep your OS up to date.
• Always make sure that your anti virus  is update: anti virus providers are always updating their system's data base with the new virus to be able to detect and clean them.And having an out of date anti virus program is useless.
• Do not always stay connected to the internet : even though its hard to do , being always connected to the internet make the chances of the system being hacked high and easy to do .
• Read before accepting anything prompt on the screen  or before installing any application .
• Do not open emails from unknown sources : these mails my have spyware and viruses that are design to infect your system and steal your information.
• Use complex and hard to guess passwords   : passwords that have a combination of alphabetical and numerical charterers are a good example of hard to guess password (P@$$w0rd)
• make sure that any one who share the system with knows how to use it.   

source :
http://www.wcu.edu/10572.asp