A few years ago, you could ask a computer professional the best way to keep your computer safe and almost all of the time they would respond by suggesting you get a good anti-virus product.

Unfortunately this doesn’t appear to be the case anymore. We are seeing more and more infections even though the computer has an up-to-date anti-virus turned on. “Drive-by” infections are on the rise. Secure applications are hard to write and any given computer can have hundreds of applications. In fact, the top two infection vectors for the past few years have been Flash and Java. I’d bet that most of you have one or both of those installed.

Add to this the sheer number of vulnerabilities being found, most anti-virus companies are having a hard time keeping up. It can take days or weeks before a signature is created and downloaded to your computer to start working.

So, what do we do now?

The best bet is to follow the Three Basic Rules of Online Security, written by expert Brian Krebs:

1. Don’t install software you didn’t go looking for.

2. Keep your installed software up to date.

3. If you no longer use it, uninstall it.