Do you use the same password or pin for everything? Is your password something about yourself that everyone knows (a family members name, your birth date, etc…?) I can understand why, I work in a cubical and log into many different systems not including the other web sites, voicemail boxes and online email clients I log into at home. It is easy to get overwhelmed with some many passwords and one would think the best thing to do is keep them all the same. Well the problem is that if you do it everyone else knows this as well. Follow the below tips to do your part in keeping you and your companies personal and sensitive data secure.

1. Don’t Use the same password. Keep your passwords different. If someone gets your password for one system you log into and you use the same password for all of them they have access to anything you log into.

2. Don’t store passwords a piece of paper Believe it or not at lot of people keep their passwords written down taped somewhere in or around their computer. All someone has to do is look around your desk or under your keyboard and surprise they have access to everything. If you have to write it down, make sure you dispose of the paper quickly. Don’t write on your desk calendar or sticky note and forget about it.

3. Use different formats for your passwords Use letter, numbers and special characters if you can in your passwords. For example you could use f1oor! M0m&D@d or 2happy* These are simple to remember and use numbers and special characters.

4. Change your passwords randomly and don’t use a pattern. Almost as bad as using the same password for everything is using a pattern. For example if your password is Joe1 the next time you have to change it do not use Joe2 then Joe3. Change it completely. No matter how inconvenient it is systems and websites that have you change your password on a regular basis, make you use a combination of letters and number or special characters are for your protection.

5. Don’t share your password! Don’t ever share your password. I know most corporate policies tell you that and a lot of people don’t follow this rule. Say you share your password with one of your co-workers and you use the same password for everything. You have now just given complete access to that person.

6. Tool that help. I know it can be a lot of work to keep up with your password and to even think of a new one every 30 or 60 days. Search the web for a number of password managers, password generators and encryption software.

You are responsible to protect yourself. These are just a few tips that can help assist in the battle against identity theft.

Feilpe Walker is the owner of Felwen Design and has managed help desks for 8 years and providing software solutions to small businesses for 4 years. His website can be found at http://www.felwen.com

There are plenty of internet predators out there. The popular website myspace has been in the hot seat because such internet predators have been posing on myspace to seduce young people. Many people would like to blame myspace for the crimes committed by the site’s users. However I would like to disagree.

Social sites are very popular. Internet users usually look for a place to belong and be somebody. There will always be a site like myspace. Before myspace there were issues (and there still are cases) with chat rooms like those hosted by Yahoo.

The web is not the criminal. The people or organizations are not trying to build sites for illegal or immoral activity. (For the most part). The problem is with the online predators.

Shutdown myspace and there will be another site that takes its place or two or three. Those sites will also have predators trying trick young internet users. The blame is on these predators. Users of these sites need to be educated and be careful.

Shutting down myspace, or adding restrictions or censorship to it will not slow down a determined online predator. Myspace becomes a target for criticism due to its popularity.

In today’s media popularity becomes a liability if any bad publicity comes out. However, I would like to conclude by summing up and saying that myspace is not a fault.

Matt Christensen
http://www.mattchristensen.net

The Internet is a wonderful invention. To me it’s the greatest technology that mankind has ever produced. It’s changing the culture of the world as well as the world economy. The tasks it allows us to accomplish are mind boggling. I can talk and collaborate with a friend halfway across the globe using my computer microphone. I can look up and get detailed information and how to’s on anything I want, instantly. A world of useful and relevant information is at my fingertips.

Unfortunately all is not right on the Internet landscape. There’s a lot of evil people out there. These people were probably doing evil things before the Internet came about, and now they have a fantastic new vehicle for spreading their evil ways. To put some nerd into this article, they have chosen the dark path. Why do they want to do these evil things? Money is probably the number one reason. Boredom and fame are others. What do they want? They want your credit card number. They may want your social security number. They want to send you a cashiers check that’s way over the sale price for payment for an item at which point they want you to send them back a cashiers check for the difference. The catch is the check they have sent you is a fake check and will bounce.

The good news is that people are educating themselves to the ways of these evil doers. I’m going to help you to recognize some of these scams. I’m going to give you advice on steps you can take to minimize your risk of falling for one of these scams.

Email seems to be the vehicle of choice for these scams. The common name for these types of emails are Phishing emails. They are called that because the bad guy is fishing for victims. I get about 3 or 4 of these emails a day. I have seen enough of these to be able to tell you the common traits among all of them. If you get any email resembling any of the following chances are it’s a sham and the email needs to be discarded. 1. The person is addressing you as Kind Sir or Madam.

2. They say they are some government official, diplomat, some person of royalty from a foreign country. Usually they introduce themselves as “I am” so and so from “the noble”" or “the great” land of **some foreign country** 3. They have some lengthy bizarre story of hardship.

4. Their grammar is way off.

5. It’s usually a @yahoo or an @msn email address, although it could be others.

I never get far enough through the email to see what it is they want, but I assume it’s money of some sort. Most of the general population can easily spot these and tell that they are a scam because they are just so strange sounding. But other emails come much better disguised. They arrive looking and sounding very much official. They will even have the proper domain extension (ie @paypal.com, @bankofamerica.com etc). Usually these scam emails want you to update something on your account. They will say something similar to the following:

“While checking your account we noticed that some information is not correct and needs to be updated. Please click on the following link and update your information. If you do not update your account we may be forced to deactivate it (cancel it, suspend it). Thank you, *signed* , The (Bank of America, Pay Pal, Wells Fargo etc) Account Team.”

The best practice for these is as follows:

1. Do not click on any link where you need to enter any information, or update anything. If the supposed institution really wants you to do something to your online account, they will ask you to go to their website yourself, and log into your account.

2. If you have any question as to the legitimacy of the email, call the institution if you can and ask their support staff about it. If the institution has no number to call, go to their web site yourself and send them an email asking about the email.

If you are an Outlook or Outlook Express user an additional step would be to install a some spam blocking software on your computer. Shortly I will be using and then reviewing one of the popular spam blocking software programs that are made for Outlook and Outlook express. Another step would be to sign up and start using a Google email account. Google’s email service does a great job of blocking junk and scam emails. You need either a cell phone or an invitation in order to get a Google email account.

Following these tips will help you, your money and your information stay safe on the Internet. As always use caution when clicking on anything in an email.

Carlos Cabezas writes regularly about home technology at http://www.HighTechHomes.tv/blog. His business, High Tech Homes, helps work at home professionals, families and small businesses with their technology issues.

E-GOLD HACKING PROBLEMS (HOW TO PREVENT THEM)

In the past thousands of E-gold accounts have been hacked and all funds stolen. One of these E-gold accounts was ours. Luckily we only lost a very very small amount of money. We have spent a few hours researching the issue and have come up with some precautions:

#1 - Never use your E-gold password on any other sites.

#2 - Use the SRK feature while entering your password. This is the little blue circular link next to the password entry box. Click on it and a small keypad will popup in which you can use your mouse to punch in your password. This can prevent Trojan virus’s from gathering info on your password.

#3 - Never download any software from suspicious looking sites. It is possible that it may be a trojan virus waiting to infect your computer.

#4 - E-gold will never email you and ask you to log into your account with a provided link. If you get an e-gold link via email. Do not open it, and whatever you do, don’t go to the site that is provided. Hackers have been sending out various emails that look like they are from E-gold.

#5 - If you own a publicly known site with a publicly known e-gold account, then open another E-gold account in which nobody knows about. Then transfer funds.

#6 - If it’s not a hassle, change your account info so that only your IP address can login to your account. This will almost certainly stop any hackers from infiltrating your E-gold account.

#7 - Run a good anti-virus software that will scan for Trojan virus’s. You may have picked one up wthout knowing it.

#8 - Change your password every couple of weeks. This will prevent hackers from gaining too much info on your password. Also make sure your password is more then just 5 or 6 charactors. Use #’s, letters and symbols.

Here are some good anti-virus sites:

Symantec Anti-Virus site: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/

CERN Recommendations: http://security.web.cern.ch/security/Recommendations/Default.htm

windows 95/98 computer security: http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/win-95-info.html

Stay safe, and protect your Gold!

Member of http://www.talkgold.com/forum community Reviewing http://www.Becomehated.com - Other Ebook Reviews also at http://talkgold.com/make_money_ebooks.html

I hate viruses, and so does everyone else who has ever gotten them or will get one. Since 2006, 1 billion people have the internet, which means that there are now more viruses then ever.

Viruses come in many forms and with many different problems attached to each kind. Some viruses are designed to mess up your entire computer and destroy all data; others are made just to show you unwanted advertisements every once in awhile. Either way, they shouldn’t be on your computer and can be removed by you manually or by virus removal software. First though, let’s discuss the most common types of computer viruses and what they can do to you or your computer.

The most known and damaging virus type that exists right now is the worm virus. This type of virus can duplicate itself and it will use the email addresses from your address book, and send itself to those people. This means your friends and family computers could even become infected with this virus.

The next most dangerous type of virus is the Trojan virus, which is a sneaky one, hence the name. Trojan viruses sneak in by disguising itself as a program that provides a legitimate function. But really it is a virus that will damage your computer or steal personal information like passwords. There is also the backdoor Trojan virus, which if your computer was infected with it, someone could take control of your computer through your network or the internet.

Another more common virus is just a plain old fashioned file virus. File viruses can attach to real software, so that whenever you use the software, it will load into your memory and infect other files that are associated with that program. That means that the most important documents and data could be destroyed by one simple click!

The next type of viruses I will discuss is the most common on all computers today, and that is Adware and Spyware. Adware is basically just advertisements that are saved on your computer, and show them selves sometimes in a random pop-up or when you type in a web address that is incorrect. Spyware is actually the worst of the two because spyware can log your every keystroke, record every website you go to, and report your statistics back to an individual or company.

Those are really the main types of viruses that exist and are most common on the internet today. Using that knowledge in conjunction with virus removal software, you will be allowed to make sure every virus is removed and not still lingering around somewhere waiting to come out again.

Before I end this article, I would like to give you some very important tips that everyone should know, taken first hand from my computer experiences over the past 10 years.

The most important tip has to do with a computer crash from a virus. Bad people make bad viruses, and those very bad viruses will do things like deleting all of your data, destroying your operating system and maybe even actually altering you’re BIOS. Your BIOS controls a lot of technical details on your computer, like your CPU’s exact speed, system temperature and most of your components.

This is what you need to do to ensure you can recover from a virus like that. First off make a clone copy of your hard drives data every week, backup your BIOS once every time you change it or a part on your computer. By doing these steps, which actually take very little time with the right tools, you will be protected against bad viruses that destroy that information. All you have to do is restore the BIOS and fully restore your hard drive from the clone image you have, and your computer will be back to normal.

That is all of my information on viruses, and my biggest tip is, if you really want to protect yourself against viruses you need to get virus protection software.

Copyright 2006 Michael Cottier

If you want to know more about viruses and purchase virus removal software, then check out Michael’s page at http://www.computer-customizing-guide.com/virus-removal-software.html Also, learn more about computer customizing at his website http://www.computer-customizing-guide.com/

War drivers are in the business of finding wireless access points, documenting them and uploading their locations to the web. Why would someone do this, well for several reasons:

First they want free internet access. Next they could just be war driving as a hobby; finally they could be targeting your network for financial gain. One of the most asked questions is how do you stop hackers from trying to hack your wireless lan and how to catch them in the act.

Stopping Wardrivers:

1. Use directional antennas: One of the most under stated uses of directional antennas are how they keep your wireless signal within your area of operation. If you are using a Omni directional antenna that is causing half the signal to travel outside your building, you have a major security problem. Also while using your wireless directional antenna turndown transmit power to reduce your signal strength if you can.

2. Blend your wireless antennas into your buildings architecture or keep them low profile. This is not expensive, the whole point is not letting your antennas stick out like a sore thumb so anyone driving by doesn’t say, wow they have a wireless network. Once again the best way to stop people from trying to hack your wireless network is to keep it hidden.

3. Use Kismet or Airsnort – Make a cheap wireless Intrusion detection system. Use an older desktop computer install Linux, install a USB wireless adapter or PCI wireless adapter and boom you have your wireless war driver stopper. Both Kismet and airsnort will alert you when wireless clients are probing your network. If a wireless client is using netstumber and not joining networks they will be found by Kismet. Their wireless adapters MAC address will be logged and other details of the operating system. Most of the time these could be false hits but if you notice a pattern of the same MAC address probing networks you could have hacker issues.

4. Security Cameras – No matter how hard you try not to have your signal bleed outside your operations area it will…to a point. Probe your own network as if you were a wardriver. Don’t just use a standard wireless adapter to find out where you still can detect your network. You will want to use a highly directional antenna to see how far away you can detect your own network. Once you know your weak points setup some cheap security cameras to monitor those areas.

5. Setup a Honey Pot – Give the Wardriver what they want, a network to hack. Take an access point connect it to a standalone switch with another junk computer connected to that switch. Name the SSID something sounding important like server WLAN and name the computer Database. Finally use a weak password or just leave the access point without any security. Script kiddies who say they “hack networks” really are only connecting to open wireless lans with no security. If you give them a “Important sounding SSID with a “database to hack” this will keep them occupied until you can track them down. There are many honeypot programs free and commercial that will simulate networks or servers but are really just recording all the hackers’ information and types of attacks.

6. Use a RADIUS Server – RADIUS servers require Wireless clients to authenticate with a username and password not just with a PSK (Pre- Shared Key). With out a RADIUS server you really don’t know who is on your WLAN. With a RADIUS server you know who is accessing your WLAN and when they accessed it. Also a RADIUS server gives you the ability of creating policies for times your WLAN can be accessed and other required security features the wireless clients must have enabled their computers.

Now let’s put this all together to catch our hacker. First you are going through your daily routine of checking logs on your Kismet IDS server and you notice the same MAC address probing networks but not joining. Next you check your help tickets and notice that in one area of the building clients were having trouble connecting to the wireless network or they had trouble staying connected. Flags go up in your head, so you go over to your honeypot server and check that . You notice it was accessed around the same time of the Kismet logs showed a client probing the network. The honey pot recorded the MAC address of the WAR driver and the operating system and the computer name.

Next you check your security cameras for that time but don’t really notice anything. So for the next couple days you keep monitoring your honey pot server and watch the hacker try and crack the WLAN and the database server. The whole process of cracking wireless encryption is actually two steps. The first step is gathering enough packets for your cracking program to crack. This whole process of gathering enough packets can takes days or weeks not five minutes. Now once you do have enough packets 64 bit WEP encryption can be cracked in less that five minutes. 128 bit encryption can take many times longer, WPA with TKIP and AES encryption can takes months to crack.

My whole point is that you have some time to catch your hacker because he will be back many times, assuming that you already have at least the basic security features in place. Now once you have all your logs compiled and your honey pot data you should have a good idea how the hacker behaves. Check your security cameras and you probably notice the same car or person in the area around that time. Take that information to your in house security and tell them to watch for that vehicle or person and call the police.

If you are lucky security or police will spot him and apprehend him. Convicting him or her will be tough but with your compiled logs and video you should have a lot of evidence to help your case.

Simple and secure wireless solutions. Join the most popular wireless networking newsletter on the internet at http://www.wirelessninja.com Keep your home and family safe with Ninja certified wireless hidden cameras http://www.wirelessninja.com/wireless_hidden_cameras.htm

Limit Physical Access

All laptops and most desktops have built-in slots that will allow you to tie your computer down with a cable and lock. If your computer doesn’t have slots, there are some security kits available that come with anchoring plates, cables and a lock. If your computer is physically locked down, it will certainly deter a thief who wants to sneak away unnoticed. But, remember, anyone ambitious enough can slice through even the thickest cable. For added safety, make sure that the rooms where PCs are left have strong doors, working locks and security alarms. Appoint someone to run a nighttime safeguard check, to be sure everything is secure before employees leave for the day. Remember to be on guard even during the daytime: password-protect screen savers to deter walk up access to every computer.

Limit Data Access

Aside from physically protecting computers, remember to protect your data, too. A thief can plant snoopware on a computer, allowing him to steal personal information. An easily undetectable device called a key logger can be maliciously planted on the keyboard cable or even in a special keyboard that is switched for the original. The key logger allows a thief copy data from the machine, without leaving a trace. Prevent this by locking computer cables into sockets and preventing access to any disk drives. There are hard drive encryption utilities available, which make stealing data from a hard drive impossible.

A sensible way of protecting data is to make computers as useless as possible to the thief. Password-protecting the BIOS configurations and hard drives will certainly help in this effort. Also, turn off the ability to boot from the CD-ROM and floppy disk drives by locating the boot-order menu in your CMOS setup and disabling the appropriate selections. You can place ownership information on the computer’s initial splash screen, to make it difficult for the thief to pawn the machine later.

It’s a surprising fact, but the biggest threat of sabotage comes from current and former employees, not from strangers. You can guard against employee theft by setting security policies, changing passwords often, and canceling the logins and passwords of terminated employees as soon as possible.

How to Reduce Your Security Risks

So how can you determine if all of these preventive measures are really necessary for your company?

First, you should perform a risk analysis on the equipment in your company. The most common risks are theft, flood, fire and sabotage. Next, you should select solutions to help you prevent those risks. Or, after identifying which risks may be impossible to prevent, you can choose to accept them. Then, you need to implement the solutions you have identified, and consider purchasing insurance to cover any remaining risks.

About Ralph Dandrea:

Ralph Dandrea is the President of ITX Corp., and leads its Business Performance practice. He is experienced in business and information technology management and holds graduate degrees in business and law.

About ITX:

ITX Corp is a business consulting and technology solutions firm focused in eight practice areas including Business Performance, Internet Marketing, IT Staffing, IT Solution Strategies, IT Solutions Implementation, Technical Services, Internet Services, and Technology Research. To learn more about what ITX can do for you visit our website at http://www.itx.net or contact us at (800) 600-7785.

Nowadays computer security is becoming of a greater concern everyday. As computers penetrate to all spheres of our business, social, and informational life, the dependence upon their stable and secure work increases from day to day. But even though that much had been thought, introduced and used to insure computer security, the armor of every computer system has holes. System administrators may constantly insure and improve the security of the systems, but there will always be some ways to pass and avoid it. People in majority reason in the similar way and in the similar way they also act. So what one man had invented will once come to the mind of some one else, and things once hidden will be found.

The problem of computer security is number one problem in nowadays networks and Internet engineering. The computer attacks of viruses, Trojan horses, worms and other software engineered by computer crackers causes a lot of damage to personally used computers, computer networks, and banking systems. The damage made by computer attacks appears to be 100 billions dollars every year just in the USA.

As it`s well known Trojan horses and different kinds of viruses or worms cause the biggest damage.

As hackers use different means to crack the security systems it often happens to be impossible to resist and computer security system fail. The computer attacks made by hackers are not simple virus attacks, but they usually combine all existing meanings to destroy the security. The case that happened with Axiom Corporation is a good proof of it.

Florida resident was arrested, being accused in a big theft of personal data. The case, against Scott Levine, 45, represents “what may be the largest cases of intrusion of personal data to date,” U.S. Assistant Attorney General Christopher A. Wray said Wednesday at a news conference in Washington.

Scott Levine is accused in 144 counts that include illegal money transactions, cheating, and escape from justice. The victim of the crime is Acxiom Corporation, one of the world leading corporations in management of personal, corporative, and financial data. After getting into Acxiom`s internal network through Internet, Levine, had thieved “ a huge amount” of confidential data. By the words of official sources the size of the information that was thieved by Levine equals to 8.2 gigabytes, and the damage caused by the thief equals to 7 million dollars.

“We are committed to safeguarding our systems and the data that we store and manage on behalf of our clients,” the company said. “Since evidence of this crime was uncovered and halted in the summer of 2003, Acxiom has made a strong security system even stronger.”

This case arose from the one last year in which Daniel Baas of Milford, Ohio, pleaded guilty to hacking into Acxiom. During follow-up investigations, the company detected a second set of intrusions, coming from a different Internet protocol address, which was traced to Levine, prosecutors said.

The usage of password generators and Trojans open new horizons to hackers, as they can get any hidden personal informational they want using Trojan horses. Once “infected” by the Trojan horse, the computer won`t remain same secure as it was pretended to be before, because most of Trojan horse programs generate all the personal data (or data needed) in hidden files and send them back to the sender if the computer is still connected to the network.(that`s a question of a big concern that most of beginner users ask: “If I don`t surf online, why is it still data exchange between my computer and server?”)

Even more dangerous than Trojans can be worm viruses.

“A worm is a small piece of software that uses computer networks and security holes to replicate itself. A copy of the worm scans the network for another machine that has a specific security hole. It copies itself to the new machine using the security hole, and then starts replicating from there, as well.” One of the most well know worms “Mydoom or Norvarg” did a lot of harm during the period of its activation to the computer network worldwide. “Message Labs, a company which scans e-mail for viruses, said that 1 in every 12 messages contained the worm.”

“Mikko Hypponen, manager of anti-virus research at F-Secure in Finland, estimated that 200,000 to 300,000 computers were hit worldwide. The worm was also programmed to flood the website of the SCO Group Inc, beginning on February 1 with requests in an attempt to crash its.”

This mail worm is spreading by email messages with attached files that are the primary body of the worm. The size of a file that contains a worm, is 34797 bytes, the executive file of the worm has the text document icon that confuse computer user and prompts him to click on the icon of the worm. After the worm`s file was executed, it appears an error message that has one of the following lines:

 Unable to open specified file
 File cannot be opened
 File is corrupted

Then Mydoom.f copies itself to the Windows folder, giving a random name to the file with extension .exe. It also makes a record in the Windows register that causes automatic execution of the worm with booting of the system: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun < random name > = %SysDir%< random file name >

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun < random name > = %SysDir%< random file name > At the same time worm makes a dll-file (dynamic library file) in Windows System folder with a random name. This dll-library has a worm`s Back-door module.

Then I-Worm.Mydoom.f sends itself by email. Addresses for distribution are combined from files with the following extensions: WAB, MBX, NCH, MMF, ODS, RTF, UIN, OFT, MHT, VBS, MSG, PL, EML, ADB, TBB, DBX, ASP, PHP, SHT, HTM, TXT. Worm omits email addresses that contain some of the following sub lines:

 mozilla
 utgers.ed
 tanford.e
 fsf.
 gnu
 mit.e
 bsd
 math
 unix
 berkeley
 ripe.
 arin.
 sendmail
 rfc-ed
 ietf
 iana
 irix
 solaris
 sgi.com
 sun.com
 slashdot
 source

The contents of the creating messages is forming in the following way: sender`s address: the name is chosen from the list:

 jerry
 bill
 smith
 jim
 sam
 james
 alex


Domain of the sender can be one of the following:

 aol.com
 msn.com
 yahoo.com
 hotmail.com
 .edu

The topic of the messages may be of a diverse contents: from greetings that are sent on a regular base by corresponding persons, to something official that has to deal with computer, internet or message delivery services, for example: Registration confirmation

 Confirmation
 Confirmation Required
 Returned Mail
 Registration confirmation
 Your order was registered
 Your request was registered
 Your order is being processed
 Your request is being processed

The body of the message may contain any kind of regular options that refer to the attachment file, for example:

 Check the attached document.
 The document was sent in compressed format.
 Please see the attached file for details

The name of the attached file is in the way that will refer only to some kind of official and trusting information, not a nude or erotic pictures that are recently sent by hackers to infect the computer with virus. The extension of the attached file is chosen from the list:

 .exe
 .scr
 .com
 .pif
 .bat
 .cmd
or it can also have double extension.

Destructive functions of the worm: the worm is looking for files on all hard disks (from C: to Z: ) that have extension mdb, doc, xls, sav, jpg, avi, bmp and deletes them in random order. As it can be obviously understood these types of files have the most valuable information for uses, because they are the storage for data used in business.

DoS attack: worm is making a DoS attack on web-sites www.riaa.com or www.microsoft.com. The attack is made only when the system date is between 17th or 22nd day of any month. During the attack a worm is making random quantity of links, sends a request to the attacking site.

Backdoor-module

Backdoor-module opens 1080 TCP/IP port. Having connected to this port of “infected” computer malefactor may use it like proxy-server or to give commands for files downloading and execution.

There are following ways to reduce the risks while working in the network. First is not to install programs that will be of no use, especially from suspicious sites. A lot of users surf online just to download and install something “fancy and new”. While surfing, it`s more secure to reject all the suggestions to install new plug-ins, editions and patches, if a user is not confident in the security of the information. Most of the computers allow to disable floppy-booting feature in BIOS, if the computer allows this feature then it`ll be additional “plus” to make the computer more secure, because a lot viruses come to the computer through infected floppy disks and they activate during booting from the floppy disk, at the same time infecting DOS extension of the hard drive. To prevent from macro viruses that often come in text or MS word documents it`s necessary to enable Macro Virus protection in all the Windows applications, especially in the MS Office applications.

It`s important as well to update operation system and antiviral software regularly.

The most secure measure that can be taken is installation of the special software as firewalls or other “spy” identifying programs. Those software applications have a special mechanism that allows determining risky sites on Internet and they`ll always ask if it`s needed to establish connection to the following web site, or if to allow sending data or receiving data. It`ll also make more secure the computer if to put anti spam protection on email messengers.

One of the main reasons why computer attacks happen so often is that most of users leave their computers working all day long, for months. Because it`s open for attacks it has a big probability to be attacked by Trojans or to get infected by virus, as well as be used as “proxy server” by hackers. The last one is also dangerous for the user of that computer, because the “proxy” can happen to the last in the chain of computer attack spreading and can be accused in being a scammer.

A powerful tool to prevent from virus attacks will be using of UNIX operation system or similar to it (Linux), these operation systems disable most of the virus features and keep them away from the hard disks as well as unwanted visitors.

The best weapon against computer attacks is information, and reasonable exploitation of the computer and network. If the PC user keeps in mind all the responsibilities and applies his even very little knowledge about computer security to insure his PC he`ll be in advantage, and will be more likely to avoid attacks.

John Nilson is a senior writer at Custom Essays Writing Service. He is an experienced writer of custom essays and term papers and will be glad to share his experience with you.

It seems that not a week goes by without some headline racing across our TVs about internet fraud or theft. It’s never going to stop, but one of the best ways to protect ourselves from this modern menace is to develop and use effective passwords on all financially sensitive websites.

Numerous articles have been written addressing this issue, and many offer similar, and good, advice:

• Don’t choose a word found in the dictionary
• Add one or more numbers
• Use one or more capital letters
• Make it at least eight characters
• Add a symbol.

A password utilizing this criteria might look something like this: G8iwn2*B. Although this is a strong password, has no meaning and is therefore difficult to remember. So the question arises: how do we utilize the above criteria while creating something memorable and difficult to crack?

One of the interesting things about the English language is that a single sound can be spelled many ways. Take the long E sound, for example, as in see. It can be spelled e, ee, ea, ey, ei, i, ie. Or how about the SH sound, as in sheet. Try sh, s, ti, ci, si, ch. Here is how to incorporate this apparent flaw of English to create strong and memorable passwords.

First, choose a meaningful name, the shorter the better. Let’s say your maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Cox. We are going to take the letters of her name and spell them phonetically. C becomes See. O becomes Oh. X becomes Ex. So C-O-X becomes SeeOhEx. Do you see it? Say it out loud if you have having trouble.

If she was born in 1918, we can incorporate those numbers like this: 1See9Oh1Ex8. Perhaps your grandmother was rich, so we’ll add a dollar sign: 1See9Oh1Ex8$.

Another security tip is to change passwords periodically. Because the same sound can often be spelled several ways, the password above can morph to: 19SeaOaEks$18. Can you still see the C-O-X?

So now we have a password that:

• is not a word found in the dictionary
• uses more than number
• incorporates more than one capital letter
• is more than eight characters
• has a symbol
• and is meaningful!

More Tips For Success:

• Once you have formulated a possible password, open your word processing program and practice typing it. Your goal is for it to flow smoothly off your fingers so you no longer need to think about it.
• Spend time trying to get a mental picture of what your password looks like. Write it down and study it to help cement the image into your memory. Be sure to shred the paper later.
• Make sure you can easily sound out the phonetic parts and that the phonetic parts make sense to you.
• When entering passwords online, distinguish between high security sites and low security sites. Your online subscription to Amateur Boating Today does not require a complex password. Don’t use one for sites don’t need it.
• For a higher level of security, don’t use obvious words, such as your favorite pet, your child’s name, or your first name.
• Good word choices include short words from your family’s past. Some examples: your father’s first car (Ford becomes EfOhArDee); the name of the city where your cousin was born (Dover becomes DeOhVeEeAr); the first name of your mother’s best friend in high school (Gayle becomes JeeAyWyElEe). Choose something that still has meaning for you and is not so obscure that, after setting it up on a site, you later scratch your head and have to call tech-support. Don’t forget to add a significant number and symbol.
• If you have trouble with the phonetics of a particular word, either chose an easier word, or browse through a dictionary to help you find alternate spellings for particular sounds.

Good luck and happy passwording!

About the Author:

Jennifer A. Thieme, owner of Solid Rock Accounting Services, is a Certified QuickBooks Advisor and a Registered Tax Preparer. She has been in the bookkeeping and tax field for nine years. She considers the diagnosis and resolution of accounting-related problems her specialty. Her articles have appeard in the Intuit ProConnection Newsletter. Contact her via http://www.jenniferthieme.com with your accounting related questions.

Who CAN you trust? With the Internet expanding at an alarming rate, there are some places on the web that resemble a dark back alley: an area you simply wouldn’t tread for fear of personal safety and security. But it’s hard to tell when you should be aware of your personal information being stolen - you might think that you are safe, but there are a great deal of people everyday whose identity is taken without warning.

What can you do in such a globalized setting; where someone half a hemisphere away can take you to the cleaners overnight? Be knowledgeable. Be aware. Know the following tips, and you’ll never have your identity stolen.

Number one places where you can lose your identity

E-mail

One of the leading problems in Internet security is how easy it is to get someone’s e-mail address. There are a number of e-mail spoofs that can take your credit card number away from you in the blink of an eye. These are:

-Paypal e-mail spoofs

- E-bay e-mail spoofs

- Tricks, like those e-mails that claim they are a long-lost third uncle or cousin of some important figurehead in a third-world country, and they would like to give you $4,000,000 or some ridiculous number.

If you know what you have to watch out for, it definitely helps. Never send anyone any kind of important personal data in an e-mail; not even if they claim they are Paypal, E-bay, or some other company you trust. No one should ever ask you for something like your driver’s license, social security card or credit card over e-mail.

A Paypal spoof site can steal your Paypal login information by simply having you put your username and password in as usual; but in reality you’re not submitting it to Paypal, you’re sending it to scammers so they can steal your account information and of course your personal information, such as credit cards. Never login to Paypal except anywhere other then www.paypal.com

In fact, if you use a spam-blocking utility like Qurb, it makes a world of difference. You might still get the odd scam or two, but you’ll be able to tell now that you know how they look.

The next avenue of personal data theft evolves around…

Pop-ups, unsafe URL addresses and third-party installers

The next area that personal data theft can occur is simply by being in the wrong place (and not even necessarily at the wrong time!) While most pop-up windows and URL addresses are safe, there are some forms of malicious software out there we know as "auto-installers" or "self-installing software." You can recognize what I mean by this if you use Internet Explorer and if you have some toolbars across the top that either you know you didn’t put on there or simply can’t get rid of. That is an example of self-installing executables: that install themselves without asking you.

Some of this software is harmful, but most know it is ad-ware/spyware most of the time. It’s just blatant advertising, but the worst self-installing software can access your cookies and attempt to transfer that data to a remote server.

So how do you steer clear of this junk?

Easy - use Firefox, or if you find yourself enduring pop-ups, get a pop-up blocker. DON’T get a third party program - get something reputable like Google Toolbar, because a third party "pop-up blocker" can ALSO be a form of spyware/ad-ware if you don’t know what you’re doing.

You can also maintain some basic ad-ware/spyware prevention tools on your system. Avast Anti-virus is excellent at detecting a self-installing script and shutting it down before it finishes. So is Microsoft Antispyware, should you have a genuine windows version. Routine scans with a program like Lavasoft ad-aware or other good spyware/ad-ware suites will also help.

And the last spot where you can have your credit card or debit card information is stolen is at your local store. Should someone ever drop your card while handing it back to you, make sure when they bend down they are only retrieving your card. There have been reported cases where shopkeepers (especially disgruntled gas station workers) have "dropped" a card only to swipe it through another machine below.

While it’s less likely you’re going to be scammed locally, the possibility still exists for a disgruntled worker unhappy with their earnings taking your card information and running up some bills in your name. Although, typically people who try this sort of scam run up small bills over a large number of accounts in order to stop the customer from noticing.

Don’t worry - and don’t get paranoid. The first step of personal data theft prevention is awareness. If you’re smarter about the secure and unsecure world, you’ll be identify scams from the get-go. It may even pay to let a company like Paypal know who the spoofers are, if you have a minute to report them to spoof@paypal.com

Remember, you the user control your level of security on the Internet. There is no one to blame when data thievery occurs but yourself.

For more topics related to Internet security and computer/Internet related subjects please come visit Mark’s Pc Forum at http://www.markspcforum.com