Income taxes aren’t something you’d share with your neighbor, so why would you share them with everyone on the internet? Information contained in your income tax records includes social security numbers, income, your address and bank account. Basically everything an identity thief needs.

Maybe I was a bit harsh about sharing with everyone on the internet. I probably should have said, “anyone who’s monitoring your system through a virus.” Today’s malware and viruses are commonly used to hunt down this information and feed it back to a central database.

Although your personal information may never get used for anything unscrupulous, knowing the possibility of it zipping through other peoples’ computers should be scary. Perhaps a bit scarier is that many of today’s viruses are indistinguishable from legitimate software. Some even go unnoticed.

Before you install your tax software or log on to the service’s website there are a few things you need to do. First, is to scan your installed software and remove obvious titles you didn’t install. Clearing and resetting your browsers should also be a priority. Finally, install, update and run a scan with a proper malware removal tool.

Names of legitimate software typically don’t use words like “protector” or “registry” so these are obvious firsts. Software you don’t remember installing should also be removed during this process. While you’re in the programs section of your machine it’s a good idea to check the install date of your virus software and update it if necessary.

Every browser is a bit different with how it’s reset. No matter the browser, resetting or repairing removes every setting and plug-in that was installed and brings the browser to its default state. This is important because much of today’s malware installs through the browser; leaving you vulnerable online.

Malwarebytes is a great free utility we use at the shop to scan computers during our process. Although it doesn’t remove everything, it removes a fair amount. Be careful when you download malware removal utilities because many malware titles disguise themselves to look legitimate.

At the shop we also optimize the system for performance and make sure Windows updates are running correctly in the background. Updates are something many forget to include in their cleanout process. Although it seems updates don’t do much, in reality Microsoft creates them to fix known security flaws.

Doing your taxes is only part of the issue, your tax information shouldn’t be stored on your computer after tax season. Even though you scanned before, there’s nothing saying viruses won’t get on your computer later. Your computer should only be used for taxes and nothing else until they’re filed.

I’ve shared some of the steps we use at the shop during our process. Virus software, no matter how high rated, doesn’t remove or prevent everything so it’s a good idea to perform these steps throughout the year. It always amazes me when people bring their infested computers to us after tax season when the most damage could have happened.

(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. You can read past articles at www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)