Your Windows Is Not Safe. Learn How To Fix It.

A typical Windows 10 installation contains 603 vulnerabilities, over 200 of which are critical - we're talking being able to execute any arbitrary code on your computer, bypassing privacy checks, memory corruption and such. Due to these facts and some others, saying that Windows 10 is not a privacy and security oriented OS would be a major understatement.

Still, there are things you can do to fight back and give yourself some peace of mind. According to Avecto - one of world's leading security companies specializing in Endpoint Security - a whopping 86% of Windows-specific vulnerabilities, including critical ones, can be mitigated by using this simple approach.

Some context: whenever your Operating System gets infected, malware needs sufficient privilege to inject itself into the environment. This can be done in many ways, but quite a lot of them involve executing some code on behalf of current user and using privilege settings associated with such account. Now, if your account has administrator privileges - basically making you the God of your Operating System - that's the easy part.

Due to this, in most Linux-based distributions, administrator privileges are separated from a typical user account and require special action (for example, a sudo command modifier) to leverage. Unfortunately, many Windows accounts are setup as administrator accounts by default.

I strongly recommend you to set up at least two accounts for your OS: a reduced privilege standard account and a separate administrator account. Always use the former one, only switching when required. This is surprisingly hassle-free, as the latter one mostly used when Windows requires some installation or update performed. This approach allows you to effectively implement something called privilege segregation and make your system much safer - chances are, malware won't be able to inject itself using your standard profile.

In addition, you must train yourself to not simply enter your admin password whenever prompted, but to carefully consider why are you being requested to do so first.

Stay safe and thank you for reading :)

Edit: all of the above applies to Windows 7 and 8 as well. While they are somewhat safer than Windows 10, the problem still exists.