Thursday 21 August 2008

How To Protecting Your Privacy Online

Your computer needs to protections to secure and protect your privacy. A recent study on Internet security sponsored by America Online and the National Security Alliance found that while most people thought their computers were secure upwards of 80% contained monitoring software known as "Spyware." Spyware allows companies to download information from your computer without you even knowing it, This is method to protecting your privacy online .

  1. Use a Spyware removal program. Ad-Aware from Lavasoft is free for personal use. Suggestion: http://www.lavasoft.de/
  2. Use a Personal Firewall. In addition to using an Anti-Virus program, a personal firewall is mandatory as it will block unwanted connection attempts. Sygate's Personal Firewall is a good firewall and it's free for personal use. http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm2
  3. Change to a More Secure Internet Browser. An excellent free alternative is "Firefox" from Mozilla. Not only is it more secure, you get a built-in pop-up blocker and Google search tool: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
  4. Never provide the personal or financial information to a non-secure website. A "secure" website is indicated by "HTTPS" in the address bar, and a small padlock icon in the lower right-hand corner of your browser window: http://www.verisign.com/advisor/check.html is a free place to check your browser's security.
  5. Never provide confidential - financial information in response to an email request. Legitimate companies will never ask for personal or financial information over an insecure medium like email. Attempts to trick people into revealing personal and financial information through impersonated email messages is known as "Phishing." Some of these messages look very official and may come what appears to be a bona fide bank or company. Beware!. Phishing email messages may be reported to http://www.antiphishing.org/
  6. Read the fine print before typing in private personal information. Always read the privacy policy of a website to understand how they will use your information. Will they share or sell it? Be suspicious if no privacy policy is visible.
  7. Be wary and virus check all email attachments. Never open an unexpected email attachment, Their computers may be infected. Self-spreading worms can infect a computer and then send an infected email-attachment to everyone in the owner's address book.
  8. Never download or accept any file or program from an un-trusted source. Adware and Spyware are frequently bundled with "free" programs. You may download one program and find that your computer becomes infected with a Spyware programs.


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