Easy Steps in Hacking Prevention

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Well, for one to prevent being hacked, one must understand what hacking is. Under normal circumstances, a hacker tricks the user into allowing them access to their computer. For example, if you're looking to download (especially if it's an "illegal" download) a program or something else offline, they may name it the same file, but it's really their compiled program which creates a hole in your PC. There are other methods such as port scanning, but they must have your IP to do that (which could easily be attained if you are a frequenter of IRC or other less secure forms of communication). Now, what a hacker does is uses these holes to generally exploit your system. Unless you are a specific target, it is unlikely they will be looking for your private information in specific (not to say that they haven't made a program which is doing all this collection for them, but again, unlikely). If this is a general hacking (personal PC, not a webserver, etc.) then they are probably planning on using your PC for something illegal. Rather than use their own IP and risk it being tracked back to them and having themselves get caught, they'll use your IP for things such as DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks (obviously in conjunction with other systems they hacked) and other harmful activities. To prevent this, you can use various virus software out there right now (for detection). However, the best way is to close all your ports with a firewall (router built-in's work nicely, but there is firewall software you can use if you don't use a router) and do not download anything unless you know what it is and have confidence in where it is coming from. Remember, if you download it nothing will probably happen, but it's once you open that .exe file where the trouble begins. I hope this helps!