I am sure you have seen the commercials that are flooding the television stations, touting 100% protection for a meager $50/year. I would advise you to review these forum discussions and reviews. Draw your own educated opinion, before you give up your credit card information.
Reviews:
http://www.complaintslist.com/computer-software/pc-matic/
Forum Discussions:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/523305/pc-matic-whats-the-good-or-bad-word/
I cringe when I hear this guy talking about how amazing his product is. Not because it is as great as he states, but because the truth is there is no such thing as complete protection from malware, viruses, attacks, ransomware, etc, aside from a multi-layered approach; which this product cannot supply. We can greatly limit them and have multiple ways to find/destroy these malicious attacks, but there is no such thing as 100% protection from a locally installed application. I recently interviewed a security analyst and expert. He confirmed what I have learned and further warned me of what is happening these days in terms of cyber attacks.
The only way to get to nearly 100% is to do the following:
- Hire a local or well established Managed Services Company/IT company to take care of you and provide the following:
- Have the industry’s best Anti-Virus on your system and pay for the license annually on every computer on your network.
- Deploy an Intrusion Prevention System or IPS on every computer on your network.
- Purchase a Router/Firewall that has Anti-Virus on it and maintain the annual license.
- Have a network IPS installed that monitors all traffic on the network.
- Deploy an edge device like PacketVipre®, that allows you to block entire countries from even communicating with your internal network.
- Keep all systems fully patched at all times, i.e. Install all Windows© Updates.
- Keep all 3rd party application up to date, like Adobe Flash© and Java©.
- Educate users not to go to known websites that harbor viruses: bit torrents, file sharing apps, porn, online gambling, etc. In essence, use good judgement and think before you click.
- Do not click ads unless you know for a fact that the company advertising is legitimate. Make sure you do not have any other browser tabs or windows up when you do click the ad.
- Don’t click links in emails that you are not 100% certain are legit and from people you know or do business with.
- Constantly educate and train your staff on the emerging attacks and how to avoid them.
The reality is criminals, AKA Hackers, are getting craftier everyday and manufacturing new ways to hack into computers, steal data, and/or steal your identity. By this very nature, there is no such thing as 100% protection. As Greg Clark stated, “A hacker only has to get lucky once. Your system, network, Information Technology staff, and Information Security staff has to be successful 100% of the time”, which is impractical and impossible. With that said, these commercials are misleading, give a false sense of security, and are blatant lies. Buyer beware.
In closing, Information Technology and Information Security experts can greatly reduce your exposure to malware and cyber attacks, nothing is 100%.