Essential Digital Skills Level 1
Course Content
- Course Introduction
- Computers and Laptops
- The Internet
- Setting up your Email
- Social Media
- Windows Basics
- Using Apple Mac Computers
- Mobile Devices
- Unit One - Using Devices and Handing Information
- Searching for images
- Searching the internet
- Files and folders on an apple computer
- Checking the file size of a file on an Apple computer
- Computer file sizes
- File types and extensions
- Updating the operating system
- Searching on a website for information
- Improving Search Results
- Organising files
- How to check the file size on a windows computer
- Understanding applications
- Unit Two - Creating and Editing
- Unit Three - Communicating
- Ways to communicate online
- Sending large files
- Opening a Zoom account
- Hosting a Zoom meeting
- Improving your video
- Solving problems during online communications
- Window file explorer
- How to share a photo from your iPhone
- Using Facetime
- The Zoom dashboard and getting started
- Using an online chat facility
- Unit Four - Transacting
- Unit Five - Being Safe and Responsible Online
- What is data protection and why is it important
- What is Personal Data
- What is GDPR
- Does GDPR apply to me
- Data Subject and Personal Data under GDPR
- Personal Information held online
- Cybercrime
- Phishing and Malware
- Text and phone scams
- Public Wifi
- Different email providers
- Private browsing
- Unwanted emails
- Unwanted friends and followers on social media
- Cookie settings
- Encrypting and protecting data
- Password manager applications
- Protecting your computer
- Identity theft and reducing the risk
- What is a VPN
- Multi-factor authentication
- Backing up data
- Protecting privacy
- Social engineering
- Shopping Online
- Course Summary
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One of the biggest threats to your computer is malware. Now, malware is a small program that can be put on to your computer that can cause all sorts of problems. It can cause your computer not to work properly, it can completely lock it up, you can have ransomware where someone can lock your computer unless you pay them money, they won't unlock your computer and it can put all sorts of other problems within the settings of your programs, which could ultimately mean that all of your back-ups, all of your computer just needs to be thrown away basically. So it is important to actually protect your computer as best you can. Now, for when you buy a new computer, it will come with some kind of program to have anti-virus software. Now, with antivirus software, there are different companies out there, some are paid and some are free. So choose the which one you want, but make sure it is a reputable security settings on it program, otherwise you might run into even more problems. But the one we are going to look at now, is we are going to look at the Norton security. Now, this is just one, because it is on a lots of computers. It is not to say we are recommending this one, but it is one that we use, but there are lots and lots of others out there. But we cannot on this call, show you every single one, so we are just going to concentrate on this. So on the screen here, you see, it is a little program that runs on your computer and it will be set to automatically scan for viruses all the time. So along here, you can add different devices. So often when you buy a subscription to it, you can have multiple devices, so I think it is up to 10 different items you can have. So you can have your computer, your laptop, your mobile phone could be protected, your tablets, all sorts of different things. It may be the rest of your family's as well, depending on the program you are on with them. So along here are some different buttons. So what we could do, this is the Norton generic page, just the start page on it. You can then go onto the scan page and on the scan page, you can do two types of scan. One is a "Quick Scan", which just runs through the commonly used files on your computer and the other one is the "Full Scan", which will scan your entire computer. So you can also on the bottom one here just scan for individual files. So if you had downloaded something you want to check about those files, you can look at those. All you need to do, so if you are doing the Quick Scan, you just click over the Quick Scan and you Start, and that will then check through and it will work through a scan over your computer. Will not hold, push that just yet. Now, an important thing with any anti-antivirus software is it has got to be up-to-date, because if your software is not up-to-date, you are not checking for the latest viruses and malware that could come into your computer, so you need to update them. Now, most of these programs will automatically update, you will not have to do it yourself, they will just do it themselves. But if not, click on the "Live Update" button, and what will happen now, it has gone through and what that is doing is done an update. You see now it has come up with Live Update complete. And if you want to do it again, you can just hit that button, and again it would do another live update and check to see whether there is any latest updates available, so it is a very fast way of doing it. Then the "Advance" button, you may not want to adjust, but what you can do on here is set the automatic scans, so this will automatically scan your computer for viruses. You can turn these on and off by just pushing these buttons, so you just literally just push them and it will turn it on and off. When you do turn some of these things off, like turning automatic, if you look down, lower down here, it will often turn the bar red. It is showing that you are at risk, see here it says, "At Risk", because you want the computer to be monitoring things. And also on the bottom there, you see there is a pop-up now appeared and it is telling you that your computer's at risk. So with these programs, it will check to see whether your computer is at risk or is there anything else you can do to protect it? So what you can do then is either click the button down here, although we are already in here, we know what the problem is here, so we are going to just turn that back on again, and then after a few seconds, the red bar goes and you can see now, it has got the green side along here to show everything is all okay. So those are settings that you may need to use, but really just to make sure they are turned on. Down here, you have also got some other settings. A firewall is a protection, and if I can... An electronic barrier that protects your computer, and you can change settings on here as well. And you can just go down, look at "Safe Viewing" as well, so you can look at the security settings within any of these web browsers. And the final thing on here is the "Clean System", which can help clean up your computer. So it look at files that duplicate and problems could be duplicate files that you might want to then delete to then tidy things up. So just to show how the scanning works just before we go, this button here, if we just hit the "Scan" button, what you will see then is it will run through a scan and that is just going to run in the background. So if we are running a computer scan, we can leave this running, carry on with the work, we do not need to sit here, we do not need to leave the computer at all, we can just shrink that window down, carry on working, and the computer will keep running through, it will check through all the files that are commonly used. If we do the full scan, it is going to take a lot longer. Typically, some of the full scans can take an hour or hour plus sometimes. But always make sure that the settings within these programs are set so that it does automatically scan and automatically update. The final thing you can look at... Here if we just pause that scan. Is just by clicking on your email at the top, if you click that, you can go on to some account settings. So depending on which system you are working with, this will either open up another window and it will take you to a web browser or it will just open up a window within here. So within here, you see we have got the account details, we click on that, it will tell us all the personal details about the account holder. And also this is "MacBook Pro" because that is what the computer we are using here, and here we can sign out of it as well. But we do not want to do that, we are going to leave it running. So obviously, I paused that, I have just hit the "Resume" button, then the software is running again and that will keep going until its scan finished. If it highlights any problems, it will then come up with on the screen that you have some problems, and then it will tell you how to fix them.
Protect Your Computer from Malware
Understanding Malware Threats
Malware poses significant risks to your computer, causing various issues such as system malfunction, ransomware attacks, and program settings alterations.
Choosing Reliable Antivirus Software
- Evaluating Options: Select antivirus software from reputable companies, considering both paid and free options.
- Example: Norton Security: Explore Norton Security and its features, although many other options are available.
Utilizing Norton Security
Norton Security offers comprehensive protection against malware and viruses with its user-friendly interface and diverse features.
- Scanning Options: Perform "Quick Scan" or "Full Scan" to detect and eliminate threats.
- Automatic Updates: Ensure antivirus software is regularly updated to guard against the latest threats.
- Customization: Adjust settings for automatic scans and other security features to enhance protection.
Advanced Settings and Features
- Firewall Protection: Configure firewall settings to provide an electronic barrier against potential threats.
- Safe Viewing: Enhance security settings within web browsers to safeguard online activities.
- Clean System: Optimize system performance by identifying and removing duplicate files.
Monitoring and Maintenance
Regularly monitor antivirus software for updates and perform system scans to maintain optimal protection against malware.
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