Home Computer Security Assessment

The Home Computer Security Assessment provides remote workers, freelancers, and home users with an authoritative security review to evaluate their personal computers against malware, data theft, and ransomware. It inspects configuration settings across Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems.

The assessment scores foundational defensive measures including full-disk encryption, local account privilege separation (avoiding daily use of administrator accounts), automatic operating system updates, endpoint antivirus protection, and isolated offline backup routines.

One of the most consequential security mistakes made on home computers is operating daily as a local administrator. When a user runs as an administrator, any process launched by that user—including malicious code executed via a malicious email attachment or web drive-by download—inherits full administrative privileges. The malware can silently disable security software, inject itself into kernel memory, modify the Windows Registry, and install persistent rootkits.

In contrast, running as a standard non-privileged user confines any executed malware to the user's local user space. The malware cannot modify system binaries, cannot disable antivirus engines, and cannot install persistent low-level services without triggering a User Account Control (UAC) administrative prompt, stopping the vast majority of exploitation vectors in their tracks.