Securing your trading workstation

C

Chagi

Hello all, been thinking a bit about this lately, and to quote myself from another thread in hardware:

The thing that amazes me at times is the fact that a very large portion of trading at the individual level is being done on the Windows platform, which is not exactly the most secure platform out there.

I was thinking a bit today about how I would ideally go about taking care of this issue, not counting basic concepts, such as using a hardware firewall or two between your internal network PCs and the Internet:

- have a dedicated PC that runs nothing but trading/charting software, we're talking OS + drivers + trading platform, nothing else

- have a single dedicated PC with a removeable HD. One HD has skeleton OS + drivers + trading platform, other HD is your "normal" config, for surfing the net, playing games, etc.

Anyone want to add some suggestions that I may have overlooked?
 
Windows is not that inheritely insecure its just that so many people who don't understand basic security concepts happen to be Windows users and its the biggest target for malware authors (because its a big ripe target).

Like you said, just do the basics: hardware firewall, anti-virus software and keep your OS patches up to date. Don't install random or untrusted apps. Don't surf questionable sites. If you want to be extra anal dont do email at all from the box.

There are a lot of things you can do beyond that but really unless someone who knows what they are doing has targeted you those steps alone should prevent nearly any problem.
 
If your computer can be access by other users then remember to protect your proprietary indicator and trading system code by encrpytion, password, etc.

Do not put auto login info into a computer for your trading account order platform unless the computer is in a secure area (locked room) that only you can access.
 
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