Security, Email and the Internet
Internet
The act of surfing the internet seems to be fairly safe in itself, although in theory it is possible to hide malicious code in a web page to be activated by the unwary surfer (I have yet to hear of an example of this in practice though). But as people stay on line for longer periods, the threat of someone detecting your presence and breaking in to access data on your hard drive is becoming increasingly real. However, the main danger to surfers still lies in what you download, rather than the in surfing itself. So...
- only download files or documents from sites you think you can trust
- scan any files or documents you download with a good virus scanner before opening them
- be especially careful of "pirated" software as it often contains viruses
- make sure that the security settings for your browser are set to medium or high
- always have your virus scanner running in the background
- install a personal firewall such as ZoneAlarm to prevent access to your PC from the internet
- do not bind TCP/IP to your network card unless you need to for internal routing; read Steve Gibson's excellent articles about bindings and internet security
- do not share folders on your PC unless you are on a network; only share those you really have to
- consider encrypting really sensitive data using Pretty Good Privacy or other freely available encryption software
- be very careful about giving out your credit card number or other sensitive information over the internet; if you do, make sure you are on a secure web site (look for the padlock symbol and a web address starting with shttp://)