Before we get started, let's clear one thing out: there's no such thing as absolute security. Following the hints in this article you may reach a high level of security, but nothing is absolutely bullet-proof. One should always be alert for new threats and take the appropriate precautions.

Rule number one (also known as the golden rule): NEVER EVER open an email attachment if you do not recognize the message sender or if the message body is "fishy" ("Hi, wanna see Claudia Schiffer naked? Check the photos in the attachment" or "Hi, here is a cool app I found on the internet, check it out"). If you know the sender, contact him/her and verify that he/she has indeed sent this file to you. If not, delete the whole message (AND the attachment, if your mailer stores it in a separate folder) and don't look back. Curiosity killed the cat.

Rule number two: Keep your antivirus software up-to-date. Some vendors say that if you update it every two weeks or so you would be safe. In our opinion, a weekly update is highly recommended. The more frequent, the better. Once I received a fishy email message by an unknown sender two days after I had updated my AV software. There was no alert by my AV but I didn't want to take any chances, so I checked for new virus definitions before I open the attachment. Guess what? The attachment contained a brand new virus that had just been discovered. Lucky me!

Rule number three: Use a firewall. Firewalls are programs or physical devices that protect your system from intruders. What? No intruders to your system? Just install a firewall, go online for an hour or so and then check its reports. You will be surprised by the results!
There are some very good software firewalls available on the internet for free downloading, just perform a search and pick one.

Are you one of those people who like surfing in your spare time? Get a pop-up killer too. These programs close the annoying windows that pop-up in some sites and may contain malicious codes. Lots of pop-up killers on the net, also for free.

Spyware. That's a program that tries to connect to its creator and send him some of your sensitive data. Usually, it's only your name, email address and this kind of information that may be used by advertisers and spamsters, but it may as well be your credit card information. Whoops! You didn't like that one, did you?. Ok then, perform a search on the net for spyware detectors. These are programs that scan your system for spyware and safely remove them. For free too.

Last but not least: leave the cookies for Santa, you don't need most of them. Until last year, you had the choice of either accept cookies or reject them. People who selected to be asked every time a site was trying to place a cookie in their system, de-activated this option after a couple of hours online. Today, Internet Explorer 6 offers the option of selectively accept or reject cookies. Third-party cookies are automatically rejected. The user can also set the browser to selectively accept or reject cookies from certain sites. IE6 can be downloaded from Microsoft's website for free, but this can take ages, as it's several megabytes. Just visit your local store and buy one of those computer magazines that come with a CD. Most likely you will find IE6 in there.

Links

Internet Security tips by CNET
Internet Security tips by Microsoft
More Internet Security tips!

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