Safeguarding have been an important issue in nowadays. There have been more threats in the IT world compare to the history. Basically, the threats can be categorized to 3 category, which are hacker, malicious code(e.g. virus and worms) and vulnerability(errors when programming, attackers take advantage on these errors). Therefore, safeguarding our data is important these days.

Ways to safeguard our data
Firewall and Anti-Virus
The easiest way and common way to protect your data is through the use of firewall and anti-virus. This will enable the users to protect themselves from worms and trojans. It will be important for the users to update their virus definition file.

Scanning
Always scan the computer regularly with an anti-spyware program, to detect the spyware or adware hidden in the software program, as they will slow down the performance of the computer or give chances to the attackers to attack the computer's data.

Update your patches
Update patches of the program regularly, to patch the "hole" inside the program, to prevent attackers taking advantage on it.

Encryption
Encrypt your data to prevent hackers to steal your data. Encryption of data will ensure that unauthrozied people will not be able to gain access to the data, to prevent any loss of data.

Backup
Backup your data always, to prevent any loss of data and could not claim back the data.

http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST06-008.html