The world today is noisier than ever, and more pervasive. We are never alone –joggers have ipods to keep them company. We overhear bits of others phone conversations everywhere we go. A constant cacophony of information pours from a multitude of sources, some of it meant for you, some of it not.

We are migrating what used to be in private to the public world, with privacy no longer a given commodity. We have become a world under surveillance, by criminals, snoops and even our governing bodies. The price we pay is a creeping colonization of our privacy and a fundamental loss of personal security.

Nothing moves faster than the internet and email has become the preferred communications tool for those who want uninterrupted workflow, or those of us struggling to “stay in touch.” Currently, we have a Fast Food mentality towards email: speed versus quality becomes an issue. Replying to email in a timely manner often means having to respond to inputs more quickly with less time for thought, reflection, even accuracy. "You can’t make phone calls or personal visits to all your friends very often, but you can ‘cc’ them regularly with a couple of keystrokes. That turns out to be very important," said Jeffrey Boase, co-author of the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s report, "The Strength of Internet Ties" report which surveyed the importance of online communications in the lives of 60 million Americans. (1)

Communicating quickly is not necessarily the same as communicating effectively. There are trade-offs that comes with the speed and efficiency of email, the top concession being security and ultimately, privacy.

With increasing dependency on email (and the internet in general) as a tool for faster communication comes the need to recognize it’s security shortcomings.

Shortcomings of all unencrypted email accounts:
- All messages are sent in clear text, making any intercepted message readable to anyone.

Shortcoming of free email services, such as Yahoo or Hotmail:
- They archive your email online, making it far too easy for hackers to crack accounts and access contents.

Shortcoming of Internet Service Provider (ISP):
- Although an ISP service will transfer messages you open to your own hard drive, a hacker can still get access to all email you haven’t opened yet.

Shortcoming of Web Services such as Google:
- It is now well documented that these services store your browser histories interminably, making your entire search history available for the asking.
- Search engines are not fully shielded by the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act 2

We have had security issues for as long as we have had computers, and even today most computers do not have enough safeguards built in. Human management overhead can be expensive and complex, and inevitably there will be mistakes as well as ever evolving compliance issues to keep up with. The answer is to apply some intelligence and implement security products that will reduce the risk of error, products that can be effectively managed as assets of any business. Adopting a security solution creates a policy of preparedness versus reactionary scrambling in response to email incidents.

1.) "Internet serves as ’social glue’" BBCNews.com, 26 January, 2006, http://www.bbc.co.uk

2.) News.com’s article on their Google FAQ: http://news.com.com/FAQ

Schwarz is the director of corporate marketing at Essential Security Software (ESS), a provider of document and email security solutions. http://www.essentialsecurity.com

Shopping on the Internet is no less safe than shopping in your local store. Follow these tips to ensure your online shopping experience is a happy one.

Will My Credit Card Details be Stolen?

If you shop at sites that offer secure payment procedures, the possibility of anyone getting your credit card details is small.

The main way that card details are stolen is from discarded credit card slips - picked up from rubbish bins or supermarkets.

However, if someone does steal your credit card details, the distance selling regulations give you the right to a refund from your card issuer for all money lost through fraudulent use.

How Do You Know a Site that Offers Secure Payment

Look for the locked padlock sign at the bottom of your screen and an address starting with ‘https’("s" for secure)instead of just "http" when you are asked to enter payment details.

This means you are in a secure part of the site and all information sent is scrambled by encryption software so that the details are impossible to find out by hackers. Do not give credit card details to a company that you have not checked.

Will Using my Credit Card Give Extra Protection?

If you spend between £100 and £30,000, a credit card such as Visa or Mastercard will give you extra protection under the Consumer Credit Act. The card issuer is jointly liable with the retailer for faulty goods bought in the UK and some issuers may accept liability for transactions involving foreign goods.

Debit cards such Visa Delta or Switch or Maestro usually do not give as much protection. So only use these cards for buying cheaper products.

Keep a Record of Your Purchases

Print out a copy of your order and confirmation number of your purchase for your own records. Reputable merchants will usually send an email confirmation of your order. However, a printed copy is useful to have in case your order is lost or deleted or not delivered.

(C) John Lynch

To get advice on online UK shopping and how to get big discounts go to: http://www.online-shopping-discounts-uk.com

There are a lot of hacking websites who are fooling you into this stuff. Yeah it is possible that Google may pick up some trashed passwords that never work. The passwords found are from some lame websites which don’t have any levels of security applied to the data. There are many other simple ways to hack such sites.

Google caching - The pages that are picked up by Google for caching are simple pages. Google spider can not even find what’s present inside dynamically placed content. The passwords are always stored in the database, which in no case can be crawled by Google spider. Google search engine always crawls through these cached pages to get the desired searched content. And every webmaster is aware how difficult it is to get a site crawled by Google or any other search engine. Even some innovative stuff used for the sites optimization can disrupt the crawling of your website. So there is no possibility that a crawler will enter the logs or database of a website and pick up the treasure of passwords.

These clever website publishers use such stuff to get more and more traffic. If they were so good in hacking why do they publish such stuff? Suppose, if I find such a stuff, why would I publish this stuff? And then get listed in Google. After looking at my stuff they will get alert and configure the search engine accordingly.

So please stop wasting time on such destructive ideas. Use your mind to construct something useful. Don’t let anybody use you for just earning good traffic.

by Bikramjit Singh author for sycamore.in and sarvpriya.com

As the Global Convergence of Information or Internet is increasing its span, so are the security threats related to it. Internet Security is the most important aspect that everyone using the internet should understand. I’ll here provide few important tips to keep yourself secure and protect your Information from Security threats.

1. Latest Anti-virus software:-

Everyday New threats and Viruses are being discovered and to cope with that you need to have a latest version of the Anti-virus software. Even to make your Version of Anti- Virus software effective, you need to update it with latest updates available. There are Lots of Anti- Virus Software available in market, both free and paid. Some of the Popular and trusted Anti -virus software are Norton (Symantec), Panda, McAfee etc.

2. Anti-Spyware Software:-

Now-a-days having Anti-virus software only is not enough. To enable yourself to be secure from Internet Security threats you also need a Anti-spyware software. Spyware programs are different from viruses in a way that unlike virus it does not alter the way in which your machines works or corrupt any data but it installs itself on your machine to send important data like passwords, SSN, Credit card numbers stored on your machine to its server. So in order to detect spyware programs & prevent one from getting into your machine you need latest Anti-spyware software. Popular spyware software’s are Spyware Doctor, AdAware and Microsoft Anti-spyware.

3. Password protection advice:-

Passwords are the most important aspect of various online accounts. They provide access to online accounts and enable you to perform various activities linked with account like shopping, emailing, online transactions etc. Keeping your password secure is like keeping money secure. Never keep same passwords for different accounts. Never keep password’s that can be guessed or password relating to your personal’s like telephone number, date of birth etc. Use long Password’s consisting of both letters and digits and may be some special characters. Always Access Websites Related to your password directly by opening a new webpage and never through a link in email or provided otherwise.

4. Apply Latest Updates & Patches:-

No software installed on your system is perfect for life. Vulnerabilities are bound to be found out in each one of them. So always apply the latest updates & patches to the software. These updates and patches are made available from time to time by the software manufacturer.

5. Firewall:-

If possible try to Use a firewall to prevent hackers from attacking your system and find out vulnerabilities in your System. Firewall blocks traffic not authorized to access your PC. Firewall enables you to access internet securely and prevent unauthorized applications and people from accessing your PC. Some well Known Firewall Software’s are - Norton Internet Security & Zone Alarm.

by Rahul Goyal author for sycamore.in and sarvpriya.com

See, once your computer gets connected with the global net it faces various threats and attacks from unfriendly microelements walking freely through the cyber space and seeking for new victims. It doesn’t help if you wash your hands before touching the keyboard; the little monsters called computer viruses could be defeated in their own methods. This is where the sword and shield aren’t able to help your romantic tendencies and the only way to eliminate this gross injustice is to accept a battle with electronic weapons!

While computer viruses behave pretty much like biological ones, they need special treatment that admits no analogy in biological terms. As insidious as their biological correspondents, they infect every living cell and spread around in record time. Thus, if you really need a functional pc, you should procure some electronic pills to get your work safe.

In this case you cannot become a faithful guardian to your machine until you have installed an antivirus program skilled enough to detect viruses, worms and Trojan horses - all “trustful” members of a happy family! It is important to keep clear about the differences between these sorts of malware, in order to protect your computer from them all. Viruses, as we used to know them when first dealing with a computer are no more that widely spread since the Internet became popular. Once again: you need an antivirus that helps against viruses, worms and Trojan horses (not only viruses)!

See the slight differences in methods and effects: Viruses intend to destroy your data. They act in sly movements and this is how the predominant negative effect of viruses is their uncontrolled self-reproduction, which wastes or overwhelms computer resources, until your cyber work space doesn’t leave you room for your actions.

But since we’ve got Internet connection we have to deal with the most popular visitors from “out there”! Introduce yourself to malicious worms: worm uses a network to send copies of itself to other systems and it does so without any intervention, thus, you stay helpless face to face with it. In general, worms harm the network and consume bandwidth, whereas viruses infect or corrupt files on a targeted computer. Viruses generally do not affect network performance, as their malicious activities are mostly confined within the target computer itself.

And here is the moment when the masquerade starts: Trojan horse is a malicious program that is disguised as legitimate software. Trojans use false and fake names to trick users into dismissing the processes. In most cases the program performs other, undesired functions, but not always. The useful, or seemingly useful, functions serve as camouflage for these undesired functions.

While some of them are particularly benign or simply annoying, others are extremely harmful and deadly dangerous. In analogy, just compare a regular cold with pneumonia… no need to mourn for you computer! What it really needs is an anti-virus protection. Remember, they are active in this certain moment, when you’re peacefully typing. Hurry up to get protected and try out PC Tools AntiVirus 2.0 as a fair suggestion.

Ted Peterson writes for Core Download, a software archive with over 30.000 software titles to download like PC Tools Antivirus, Spyware Doctor and Spam Monitor.

Spyware defines itself as being highly malicious and perspicacious in collecting information about you and using it against you! It will learn everything about your online behavior by spying every move and click you perform… attention, the spy-hole never sleeps! And every spy has its own character: one is digging in your garbage, other wears a friendly mask to get in and to cause serious damage etc. One is more insidious then another, but all of them have a single purpose: to steal your love for life!

Why is it really annoying?

Sometimes you can get out of your mind asking yourself what made your computer behave so madly. The screen doesn’t stop from displaying pup-ups that weaken your concentration and draw your attention to useless images featuring various products. You receive “pleasant” surprises when starting up your computer and observing a strange change of your own settings: the usual home page you used to start your surfing with is suddenly replaced and you simply cannot get it back. The mysterious appearance of a new tool bar wouldn’t be such a big deal, but the real problem is that you cannot remove it. It seems that you simply started to “lose it”?! Your peaceful machine got it’s own life and doesn’t need you anymore!

Who does all the changes and installs programs you never even heard about?

Well, there is no reason to start woo doo practices to regain your computer’s sympathy or engage in other rituals to get rid of the phantoms. Do not become a mystic just because your computer behaves strangely!

All of the above mentioned symptoms are signs of spyware invasion! Spyware gets into your system and performs apparently innocent tasks without asking your permission and without needing your holy consent.

Why is it dangerous?

Fulfilled with data you never needed and never approved, your computer will slow down its activity and ordinary tasks will take centuries to get accomplished. Frequent crashes are able to seriously damage your computer or lead it to the final crash.

If you are definitely convinced to stop it, you would need a special Anti-spyware program, but keep in mind: spyware stuff appear in many forms and perform different functions. You need a program intelligent enough to detect and deal with most of them. And, believe me, they are many: adware, keyloggers, spyware cookies, Trojan horses, adbots, Spybots and so on. To defeat them all you could try Spyware Doctor! Heal your PC and return its fidelity!

Ted Peterson writes for Core Download, a software archive with over 30.000 software titles to download like Spyware Doctor, PC Tools Antivirus and Spam Monitor.

Viruses, Worms and Bacterias are the well known biological pathogens. In computer terminology, experts have termed them for malicious programs. In previous decades, these programs were supposed to be a computer flaws or mistakes. Lateron, many passionate destructive programmers coded such programs which were intentionally programmed to perform some destructive activities. Their benefits are not known, although, their destiny is known to us and that is - Prison. But, question arises that - why such programmers have chosen such a poor activity? I think the reason is the human nature, these people can not do anything good to become famous, so they have chosen to become bad name and gain some fame. Afterall, that is also the kind of fame. In this article, you will find some precautions and ideas to get rid of these malicious programs and also a brief introduction to such programs.

Philosophy of Viruses

Each virus is a malicious program which is programmed and designed to take benefits of flaws in computer system including hardware and software components. The actual thing what each virus demand is - CPU Resource. CPU resource can be understood as state of execution. All the executables programs follow the following states - [1] Dormant State [2] Ready State [3] Execution State [4] Waiting State

The executable program at the beginning is at dormant state. In this state, the executable is only stored in the secondary storage device (Hard disk, Floppy etc.). After the CPU Scheduler schedules the executable file, the executable gets the CPU resource. Each program passes through all these states. The operating system has the scheduler program that runs under the kernel to perform the execution of executable programs. Even a Virus also follows through these states.

In MS-DOS and Windows based Operating systems .COM, .EXE are the common executable files. Many Trojans and Cuckoo eggs take benefit from this. Trojans are the malicious programs, but, they cheat the user by his mistake and also operating system flaws. Such as they may store a program with the same name in a directory which is scanned by operating system shell first; like System32 folder of Windows-2000 is searched for presence of a file before Winnt. Due to this, if you type a executable file without providing its full name, you may accidentally execute a different file that may be malicious too. The other option for such programs (Trojans) may be extensions of Windows operating system. A .COM is executed before .EXE, I meant that if two files have the same name with only difference of extension, you may execute a .COM accidentally which may be a Trojan. One other option which such Trojans follow is typing mistakes. But, GUI based operating systems where icons are followed , such mistakes automatically eradicated.

Effects of Viruses

Viruses not only use system flaws but, they also work with useful components of operating system. The best way for such programs is performing a loss to the computer system by spreading themselves. This quality of viruses matches with biological viruses. I think that is the main reason why ‘Virus’ name was coined. Viruses may -

[1] Replace the system files and software executable with their own program. [2] Delete some content or modify all the contents. [3] Read you Address Book and mail the Virus program as a attachment to your friends and group. [4] Eat-up all the system resource by using memory acquired by them. (Memory-resident Viruses) [5] Make the whole system state unstable or nearly stop working. [6] Create a Bad Sector to hard disk which Operating system discards reading.

Most of times Viruses act in such a stealth manner that user is not aware with what is going on. A novice user may not notice the incident that is going with his computer system. Sometimes, experts also miss such incidents. Actually, Virus developers do not follow any common method and technique. They are simple programmer who accidentally know some system flaws and enjoy the loss of other people. They do not think of effect of such activity. A computer system may be installed in any place. It may installed in a Hotel, Office and even in Hospital. It may be installed in an ICU of a hospital. Think of a scenario when someone dies only due to failure of computer of ICU. This is a real shame on virus developers. If they can not do something good, why applying all frustration on poor citizens. What they did unfair with you? Whom are you taking revenge? I think they are the heartless fellow who do not understand human feelings and they are apart from humanity. I have just one suggestion to them, meet psychiatrist.

Virus, Trojans, Worm, Bacteria, Spy ware and Botnet

These all programs are collectively called malicious programs. These all the executables in various forms. Some VBA programs are also one of these.

Virus : Any malicious program which creates multiple copies and performs any miscreant activity withing the system resource. They eat-up memory, replace or corrupt boot sectors of hard disk or stop a working systems.

Trojan : These programs resemble with viruses, but, they have interesting way to make themselves executed. They take benefits of typing mistake or priority based system of operating system as discussed above.

Worm : Worm are network based programs that takes network based flaws into consideration. They spread themselves through network and generate serious problems in servers. They may affect bigger organizations to home computers with their execution. Their activities are similar as defined in previous point, but, they differ in their methods of spreading.

Bacteria : These malicious programs have just single intention to copy themselves many times. This causes lack of resource in the computer.

Spyware : Such programs spread through Internet. They take useful information from the computer systems and send them to a web-server which installs them to know the secret user information. These are easy to develop and spread.

Botnet : Such programs are similar to spywares, but, their mechanism is different. These programs are installed by Internet, the developer installs them in may computers of the world and they have interest to copy softwares and programs installed in many organization. They usually command the other systems and implement actions. Once the central server sends a command through IRC, all the computers where botnets are installed, respond to it.

This was a brief information about these malicious programs. Now, I should come to the point what you can do to escape from them and rescue if you affected accidentally.

Escaping from Viruses

There are many precautions which can be taken to avoid viruses. I have enlisted some of the precautions, all of them are mandatory to follow -

[1] Do not store installable programs in Hard disk. Many times, we copy the installation program from CD-Rom of software to Hard-disk directory. Actually, most of viruses replace the executable programs with the virus program. If they affect your hard disk, you may accidentally install them.

[2] Have a Virus Scanning program and scan the executable files before you execute

You must install any Virus scanner program which can scan each file individually on your command. This will escape you from state where you accidentally execute a program that is already virus affected.

[3] Windows users should not follow web view of windows explorer.

Most of viruses replace the Folder.htt with some VBScript. Each time you view a folder, you execute a virus and you keep thinking - why my computer is so slow? Follow the folder option and replace the view of folder with classic folder view.

[4] Use Full extension instead of Filenames only

By default Windows Explorer is designed to hide the extension of known file types. This is the weak point. Actually, most of viruses that executed through e-mails use this weakness. They may use the same icon of Microsoft Word to an executable file. You would take a file as Microsoft Word file which has .DOC extension. You could not see its extension, you are just watching its icon which is similar to .DOC file. You may execute it and accidentally affect your system. So, follow the Folder Option from Control Panel and uncheck the option in View tab that suggests - Hide file extension for known types.

[5] Keep better control on programs that are executed at system start-up

You can follow System information from Program > Accessories > System Tools. Click Software Environment and then click Startup Programs. If you find any program that may be malicious, you can remove it from startup. There are two options for any program to execute at startup -

(a) Programs > Startup Folder.

(b) Windows Registry

You may easily remove a suspected file from startup folder by deletion. But, Windows registry is bit trickier. You may study one of my article on Windows registry.

The Ultimate Solution

Anti-Virus programs are the best solution. There are may freeware Anti-virus programs such as AVG, Avast and others. On the other hand, we have Norton Antivirus, PcCillin and McAfee which are famous ones. Use any one of them that suits your requirements. The anti-virus programs keep some patterns of file organization of a virus infected file and they match the same pattern to all the files stored in your system. They may track a series of viruses. If they find any virus during scanning, you are prompt to delete such files. You are also informed with the name of virus. Actually, these names are given by anti-virus programs, but, names are common to all the anti-virus. You should update your anti-virus software through Internet to make it efficient over new viruses. Most of updations are free of cost.

Rescue for a virus affected computer

If you find some specific files affected by virus while scanning with anti-virus program. Remove them immediately. But, if you find that many files are affected and even system files are also corrupt. Save all the data files stored in boot drive (mostly C:) and store them in other partition of your hard-disk. Scan you boot sector with anti-virus program and if that is also affected, store your data files in a floppy disk or some other media. After this, power off your system, do not shut down properly in this case, there may be some files related with windows shut down process, affected with virus. Such program may also affect your recently secured data files. Next you do is re-installation of operating system. You should format the partition affected by such viruses. Do not install without formatting.

Some VBScript based viruses can be removed by deleting .HTT files. .HTT file keep the customized folder setting. Search these files in all the computer folders and then delete. You may also search them with clause of text containing as ‘vbscript’. This will affect only the view setting of all the folders of your computer. But, if you are already using classic view of Folders Option, you will automatically get rid of HTT files related problems.

Worms are real problems for the computer which are part of a LAN or Intranet. Your Internet connection may also be LAN based. If you are not using firewall, Botnet and worms can perform their poor activities. Firewall is a software that can be installed to protect unauthorized access to your system through network and controlling incoming and outgoing traffic efficiently. Such program allow only those applications which are intended to use the Internet or access the network. One of the firewall software is - ZoneAlarm of Zone Labs. This product is freeware for home users. You need not be an expert. This program is by default well configured. Trusted zones are set into it which are the computers of the network which can make connection with you. You can lock the internet facility if you are not using it. Actually, spywares make contact to any server to perform their activity, when they lose the connection, their effect becomes negligible. So, firewalls can be used to get rid of worms, botnets and spywares.

Anti-Spyware softwares are the other method to protect the spywares. Actually, spywares have a similar pattern to work. Making access to Internet and send the useful information and address book to their web-servers. They put themselves in start-up with the resembling name to a system file, such as rundll32.dll or Kernel32.dll. They masquerade with you and play silly game of breaking your privacy. They are not the one who delete something from your system, but, they are the one who want to perform something which can not be regained. Do not use Internet Explorer if you are entangled with again and again installation of viruses. Use Mozilla Firefox instead. Actually, being more powerful Internet Explorer allows execution of some scripts which may be harmful to your computer. Spywares are not the viruses, but, I keep them in malicious programs.

Conclusion

You should trace the reason of any virus infection. If you trace it properly, problem may be avoided in future. Anti-virus programs work to trace virus files, but, no one take guarantee. Your awareness is above all. Afterall, a virus is a program and it has its process in your computer. Use task manager to get them deleted on the spot. Scan your computer with such programs and do not click each executable, first scan the file, then, execute it. I have mentioned some of the precautions, but, the list is long. One best precaution is to use registered softwares only which follow some standard. There are many organizations for standardization. Products downloaded from good software companies do not contain any such problems. You can download such programs from registered companies site. Overall, I can say - "Precaution is better than cure." "One scanning a day, keeps Viruses far away"

- Som Dutt Tripathi

Shopping online can be a very stressful experience. With all of the stories of fraud and identity theft, many people are nervous to shop online. Although online shopping will never be absolutely risk free (but then again, nothing is absolutely risk free!), there are steps that can be taken to reduce the risk of being a victim of fraud.

Contact Information - At a minimum, full contact information should be readily available on the website including business address and phone number. If this is not available, this should be a warning to you. Also, it is always a good idea to validate the phone number and address of the online business if possible. You can use online phone directories with reverse lookups (the ability to type in a phone number and be provided an address) to verify the phone number and the address. If all of this matches up, this is a good sign. You may even want to call and speak with a live person before making the purchase.

Also, you should consider where you are purchasing from. Obviously, it would be less risky to purchase in Canada or the United States than it would be from an online store in Nigeria where Internet fraud is extremely high.

SSL 128-Bit Encryption - If you are going to do a transaction over the Internet, you want to make sure your information is protected when it is sent through the Internet to the online website. The standard way of doing this today is for a website to use a SSL certificate with 128-Bit encryption. This encrypts the information between your browser and the website, preventing interception of credit cards and other personal information. If the online business does not use SSL 128-Bit encryption, this should be a warning to you. In fact, even if the business is legitimate, I still would not recommend sending confidential information to their online website because it could be intercepted.

So how can you tell if the online website has the SSL certificate with 128-Bit encryption? Just look for the closed lock in the bottom corner of the latest versions of Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. If the lock is there, it is using SSL. You can double-click the lock and verify that it is using 128-Bit encryption as well.

Policies - Refund Policies and Privacy Policies are must reads before buying from an online store. The Refund Policy should be acceptable to you personally; the Privacy Policy will inform you as to how your personal information will be used and protected. Keep in mind, by law if a business is processing or storing your personal information it is required to have a Privacy Policy.

Finally, use your best judgment. If a site looks professional, has full contact information, has secure SSL 128-Bt encryption, and clear policies, the risk is greatly reduced.

W. Roberts
CanuckShops.ca
http://www.canuckshops.ca

The advent of the Internet has been a huge boon to the banking industry. Long concerned about the costs of doing business, banks have quickly embraced the Internet as a way of doing business with their customers without having to pay employees to handle the transactions. The Internet is open for business 24 hours a day and a "teller" is always on call in the form of a fully automated system.

Unfortunately, certain clever criminals have made the very notion of online banking inherently risky. Using a system known as "phishing", these unscrupulous types have sent out millions of e-mail messages that appear to be from legitimate banking institutions, asking customers for personal information, such as usernames, passwords, credit card numbers and Social Security numbers. Many people have replied to these messages without realizing that they are not from their bank, but from someone who wants to steal information from them.

An even worse problem is that of "pharming" where malicious code directs customers who are trying to find a bank’s Website to a site that the criminals have set up that looks just like the real one. This one, however, is only there to steal information.

This has led to some customers losing money, as the crooks have been able to infiltrate their bank accounts using the stolen information. An even worse outcome is that there is not a bit more unease among all consumers about engaging in financial transactions online.

There are a number of solutions in the works. Some of them involve more detailed questions of customers as the log in, so that their identities can be more accurately confirmed and so that the customers can be assured that they are at the right Website. The hardware solutions are more effective, as they require that the customer use a physical device to connect, such as a card that displays a number that changes once a minute that only the real bank’s server knows. The problems with these solutions are cost and the problem of physically distributing the devices to the public. Internet commerce is still in its youth, and these problems will eventually go away as the entire system becomes more sophisticated. In the meantime, customers who bank online should make a habit of becoming more cautions as they use the Web for financial purposes.

©Copyright 2006 by Retro Marketing. Charles Essmeier is the owner of Retro Marketing, a firm devoted to informational Websites, including End-Your-Debt.com, a site devoted to personal bankruptcy, debt consolidation, establishing credit and credit counseling.

With the ever growing popularity of internet browsing and the burst of high speed connections via Broadband or Cable, the security and protection of your personal data contained on your home computer has entered a new phase.

This high speed revolution has increased the swiftness of accessibility for unscrupulous hackers to upload private information quickly and easily, through your home internet connection.

With the threat of viruses, identity fraud, phishing, spyware and keyloggers, never has it been more important to protect the valuable contents of your home computer.

There are many types of internet security software out there, which offer varying ranges of performance when it comes to security. The most popular software requires the computer owner to purchase a license and download the software over the internet or buy the software from a reputable computer outlet for a set fee which includes 12 months of free updates, with a view to paying a further fee every 12 months to keep this update service going, this for some computer owners can be a slightly expensive encounter and can put owners off placing that all important security software on their home computer.

Is there a FREE and secure alternative? The answer I’m happy to say is yes.

Home internet security comes in four main categories of protection, Spyware Protection, Anti-Virus Protection, Firewall Protection and Windows Updates.

Spyware Protection

Spybot found at www.spybot.info is an excellent free spyware removal tool which helps clear your system of any threats from Adware, Keyloggers, Malware etc, the program is very easy to use and updates can be downloaded for free and are updated on a regular basis to help make sure you are protected.

Anti-virus Protection

Avast! Anti-virus found at www.avast.com is a more than adequate anti-virus protection, registration is absolutely free for home and small business users and just requires the user to register once every twelve months, which is a very small burden especially when you can download virus definitions and program updates totally free.

Firewall Protection

Sygate Personal Firewall found at www.sygate.com is again a totally free for home and small business users personal firewall, the setup of the program is very user friendly and can easily be setup by someone with little computer knowledge. The protection is highly suitable and very secure.

Windows Update

All computer users should make it their fortnightly chore to visit the Windows update service and download the latest security patches, these are most important to cover any floors which have been discovered in Microsoft applications. You can also switch the update to automatic, so when important downloads are available windows will download them using low bandwidth, so not to disturb your internet browsing.

CONCLUSION

Internet security is a high priority for all computer users, and whether this service is paid for or users wish to take advantage of the three excellent and secure software programs above for free, that is completely up to the individual. Some sort of internet security is better than none at all.

Simon Ecclestone

For further Website promotion tips and other internet facts http://website-promotion-tools.blogspot.com/