Ask HN: Advice for non-technical friends worried about malware

Posted by thefreeman on Sunday December 21, 2014 @01:11PM
from the ask-hn dept.

With all of the recent main stream hacks, I have had a lot of family and friends asking for advice on how to avoid being "hacked". They are basically asking for advice on how to avoid being infected with malware or having their financial information stolen.

I am really not sure what to tell them. For technical users, it basically comes down to common sense. But there is no way to explain to a non technical computer user the difference between a well crafted website overlay, and a real adobe flash update, etc.

The most I can really give them is to always keep up to date with browser and operating system updates, and recommend a password manager to avoid reusing passwords.

Anyone else with more experience have better advice that can be given?

( 1 comment | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: Advice for non-technical friends worried about ma... by JacobHarrington on Sunday December 21, 2014 @08:36PM (#8781587)

Why not tell them to install something like MalwareBytes, that automatically scans their machine? A lot of what they are looking for is peace of mind. I usually give family and friends the basic tips (don't open attachments you aren't expecting, be careful of the "seedier" sites you travel to, and so on) while also having them install a scanner that can catch most of the things that they'll end up contracting.

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