Page 688 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

Chapter 11. Security & Privacy

If it weren’t for that darned internet, personal computing would be a lot of

fun. After all, it’s the internet that lets all those socially stunted hackers
enter our machines, unleashing their viruses, setting up remote hacking
tools, feeding us spyware, trying to trick us out of our credit card numbers,

and otherwise making our lives an endless troubleshooting session. It sure
would be nice if they’d cultivate some other hobbies.

In the meantime, these lowlifes are doing astronomical damage to

businesses and individuals around the world—along the lines of $100
billion a year (the cost to fight viruses, spyware, and spam).

Microsoft has been making Windows steadily more secure for years. Evil

strangers will still do all they can to make your life miserable, but they’ll
have a much, much harder time succeeding.

Note

Most of Windows’ self-protection features have to do with internet threats—because, in fact,
virtually all the infectious unpleasantness that can befall a PC these days comes from the internet.
A PC that never goes online probably won’t get infected. So this chapter covers many features of
Windows 10’s browser, Edge (covered in more detail in Chapter 9).

Lots of Windows’ security improvements are invisible to you. They’re deep

in the plumbing, with no buttons or controls to show you. If you’re scoring
at home, they include features with names like application isolation, service
hardening, Protected Mode, Network Access Protection, PatchGuard, Data

Execution Prevention, Code Integrity, and everybody’s favorite, Address
Space Layout Randomization. They’re all technical barricades that stand
between the bad guys and your PC.

The rest of this chapter describes features that aren’t invisible and automatic
—the ones you can control.