Only a few years ago, most people looked forward to the arrival of new phone books. Today they seem superfluous. We have become accustomed to finding the information we want online. We have even started to do a lot of our shopping online. But how do you protect your privacy, important information like credit card numbers and your computer itself while online surfing?
The first step is to make sure you have a good software firewall in place. It should be a firewall that stops unwanted outbound (dial-home) attempts as well as inbound ones. The firewall that ships with Windows XP only stops inbound attempts and this is not sufficient. (You may also want to contact your internet service provider to see if there are any settings you can change on your router to increase your on-line security.)
Secondly you need a good antivirus program, with up to date virus definitions installed and actively running on your computer. Third, use a safe browser- older versions of Internet Explorer should be avoided. Whichever browser you use, you will want to keep it up to date, as most browsers are constantly patched to close security holes as these are found.
You want to avoid phishing attempts. Never click on a link in an email that purports to be from your bank or any other site where you would enter a sensitive log-in when you get there. Most companies will not tell you by email that there is a problem with your account, just because of this. If you ever do get such an email DO NOT follow the link, instead type the name of their web site into a new browser window. That way you will know that you have arrived at the genuine site and not a copy owned by crooks for phishing purposes.
There are certain types of sites that are notorious for being places your computer can pick up a virus. These include porn sites, crack sites (no, not the type of crack you smoke, the type that helps you run software without paying for it), and gaming sites. If you must visit such sites you need to take extra precautions as no firewall or antivirus software is perfect. You should run an isolation program like Sandboxie. These programs keep all your surfing activity quarantined, and make it easy to delete all files that were created during a surfing session.
Two more suggestions. Once in a while you should use a different antivirus program to scan your computer. The best practice is to download their virus definition updates, disconnect your computer from the internet, turn off your regular antivirus program and then scan. You can use the free versions of Super Anti Spyware and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for this. If you suspect that you have picked up a cloaked root virus, you will need a recent anti-virus program that is combined with a boot disk. It is usually impossible to find a virus in your boot sector without this type of disk. Remember to turn your regular anti-virus program back on afterwards to keep your computer secure when surfing.
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