How can you tell if your computer is safe?

The thought of having someone listening or watching you from your computer or phone is often something scary to think about. In order to know if someone’s computer is safe to use, there are certain things to keep an eye out for. The first thing to look at can be identified on the outside of the computer. The webcam should be looked at first to make sure no one has hacked into the webcam secretly watching the computer user. If the webcam has a green or red light coming out from it, there is a high chance of someone hacked into the webcam to watch the computer user live. Having a physical webcam blocker can be an ensuring way to prevent being watched. Another thing to look at when making sure the computer is safe to use is by listening to the computer. If the computer has suspiciously sporadic noise coming from it, it is a sign that the computer’s speaker is being hacked. When using the computer, look out for any fake antivirus messages, redirected internet searches, and ransomware messages. The are also great indicators of potential computer compromises. These are usually tactics used by hackers to gain an upper hand against the computer user to force them to do whatever the hacker wants them to do. The best indicator to immediately tell if your computer is safe to use or not is the performance of the computer itself. If the running time of the computer has drastically changed in a short amount of time without any downloading of software, someone has probably hacked the computer. The computer’s running performance tells us if the hackers have deliberately downloaded any big software into the computer. This can be checked by the computer user by going into the folders, going to this pc, then to local disk, then looking at the files.