Preventing Network Virus Spread

I am on a network with siblings who are very careless when it comes to internet security. In this home, we are all connected through the same router and that is the only connection between computers, we don't do any folder sharing or anything.

What can I do or what services and other system elements can I disable or remove to prevent the risk of any network-level virus penetration?

 

I would recommend anti-virus and anti-malware programs on all computers, and personal firewalls on all computers. This should be enough for an average home user, as long as your router has an inbuilt firewall as well.

Some programs that I personally recommend are:

Avira Antivirus: http://www.free-av.com
Malwarebytes anti-malware: http://malwarebytes.org
COMODO Firewall: http://www.comodo.com

Obviously these will be no good if you do not scan with them. I recommend each program is used at least weekly.

If you use these it is very unlikely that anything will get on to the network, so there is little need to worry about infections spreading.

 

The personal firewall is the most important for preventing an infection. In the firewall, if you don't specifically allow access from one of the other computers, neither they nor any virus on their computer should be able to access yours and spread the infection.

Though I'm sure it's good, I'm not familiar with the COMODO that Collinsl recommended but I know the ZoneAlarm firewall would do the job. Free versions of both are available on the MajorGeeks website

 

Is Windows firewall enough or do I need something third-party? Right now I use NOD32 and SUPERAntiSpyware, I have no third-party firewall.

 

The windows firewall has gotten better in recent years, but I would still recommend a third-party version.