Thank God there are some good ways to protect your privacy and to surf and to buy online safely. The first thing you must know is that your computer and the Internet are not safe, not at all, instead they are a place full of scammers, hackers, thiefs and some organized groups that want nothing but your money, your identity and your files to use them for their own profit. How to stop them?
Let's start with your computer. Do you have a Windows Log On Password? Cool, but that's just not enough. Not even for beginner hackers with some good software. They can take your computer away from you, remove the hard disk and then access your files. The solution is encryption. If you are using a notebook it probably has some in house software to make that for you. My Acer has some good encryption and security software. I encrypt al my files all the time. However if you want to go to the next level you can't encrypt and decrypt one file at a time. You need something else to do that for you automatically. There is one good and free software called True Crypt.
This baby will even encrypt your entire hard disk if that is your wish. But let's take a look at sible file encryption first. You don't want to encrypt and decrypt everything one by one, do you? So you can create a virtual hard disk contained in a True Crypt file and when you open that file with your password, a hard disk opens in the My Computer section. It works exactly like a normal hard disk, except that this one is encrypted and only you can see it.
True Crypt has all the intructions there for you so I am not going to write it all here. The kind of passwords you can use are: character passwords and the best of all, file passwords. What are those files passwords after all? It's files that will act like the password. You pick one file, for example an MP3 music file, and you store a big password there and you can then copy the music to a secret USB Pen and use it to open the virtual hard disk. It's awesome!
If you want to go further you can encrypt your entire hard disk but that's a bit risky so you are on your own. However you should do it if you want to be 100% safe. No one on earth, not even NSA or the Secret Services can break this algorithm, so you can see how safe it is. The longer the password the safer it is. Remember that.
Ok, your hard disk is fine now, so what's next? Your browser.
Do you still use Internet Explorer 7? That's a big no no. Use Firefox instead. Or maybe even Opera if the websites you access allow it. Opera has 0 security holes. That means that unless you install some junk in your computer, you are 100% safe online. If you use Firefox never install templates and add ons from people and places you don't know. They can be mining your information such as the websites you visit and your credit card information and sell it to third parties. This is not so unusual as you might think. Only install Google Toolbar and Toolbars form places you know for sure they won't trick you.
Never install any, and I really mean any .exe file unless you for sure it comes from Microsoft or Google or Yahoo. They contain virus and spyware that goes disguised and even the antivirus can't snif it. How is that possible? Top hackers can embed some piece of code in such files that anti virus don't know yet. So until the Norton or Panda programmers make the anti virus for it and until your computer downloads the latest update you are at serious risk!
Now comes email. If you are like me you like to use an offline email software such as Thunderbird. It's super fast and you can search as fast as you type. Did you know that every single email you send can be easily seen and read by any third party? You should encrypt any sensitive messages you send, such as credit card numbers for example. Send the email with a .zip encrypted file to enjoy peace of mind. Never open or download anything from emails that you don't know for sure.
Now let's talk about phishing. Have you ever received an email saying your bank account is frozen and you must log in to make it work again? The problem is that the email points you to a place that looks exactly like your bank's website except that the URL looks a little different. That's a SCAM website! Even if it's encrypted like your bank it's still a scam. When accessing your bank always type the full URL or use a bookmark.
