By now you have (hopefully) protected the PCs in your home. You've shielded them against viruses, spyware, and a host of potential maladies using a range of defenses.
But how do you know for sure those protections are the right protections? Except for a glowing icon, how do you know your safeguards are safeguarding anything at all?
That's where Active Security Monitor (ASM) comes into play. A free security diagnostic from AOL, this tool monitors your home network to ensure all the right security functions are in place.
ASM won't actually protect you from anything, but it will help manage your existing protections, and that can be an important thing. From "not enough" security, many home users have gone to the opposite extreme of "too much" — or at least too much to keep track of. With so many firewalls, intrusion detectors, anti-spyware tools, and anti-virus apps, it can become difficult to keep track of the full scope of one's security situation.
ASM simplifies the management of such tools. It continuously monitors your PC and delivers a consolidated overview, reporting on such common applications as a current anti-virus scanner, a firewall, spyware protection, wireless security, and various Windows and Internet Explorer security settings. Perhaps best of all, no AOL membership is required.
ASM will not tell you whether your security apps are working, or how well, but it will tell you whether you have all the appropriate apps in place.
Having reviewed your configurations, the application reports back with an overall security rating of zero to 100, much like a credit score, and offers specific suggestions on how to improve your score. (Step-by-step instructions for plugging security holes usually can be found by clicking the "Improve Score" tab.)
The path toward improvement typically includes recommendations for products, services, and articles that might help you resolve any security vulnerability. While this may sound like a forum for hawking corporate wares, in fact these tips and explanations are almost always straightforward and helpful.
Another handy feature helps users gain a long-term perspective. Presented in graph form, this feature displays a computer's relative score over a period of time, thus helping the user track how well security is being maintained on that machine.
Users may have certain expectations about AOL products. Super easy-to-use and intuitive interface? Absolutely. One of the pleasures of this application is the ease with which one can view and navigate the relevant information.
But what about the frequent expectation that AOL products will be bulky, slow, and a little on the weak side when it comes to actual features? Here ASM far exceeds expectations, with a quick and simple download and installation to go along with product functionality that delivers just as promised. The diagnostic features are right on the money.
