Tips On Optimizing Your Internet Security	Visited: 756 Not rated Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
by Maneet Puri November 01, 2007

While you browse through internet with gay abandon, someone might be spying or hacking your computer security to steal your passwords and other important details from your computer which you might not be even aware of. With increasing number of virus vulnerability, spying and hacking threats taking place in the World Wide Web, it has become immensely essential to ensure that you network is fully secured from the external threats.

Following are some of the most important steps you must take to optimize your internet security

Installing Anti-virus Software: New viruses and threats are being discovered every single day and therefore, you must install some really effective anti-virus software on your system to ensure it doesn’t get virus affected. However, merely installing these softwares may not be enough – you need to update them with the latest updates available. Some of the most popularly used anti-virus softwares are Norton, AVG, Panda, Avasti and McFee.

Anti-Spyware Software

The spyware softwares are considered to be more dangerous than viruses and worms. While viruses corrupt your system files impending your normal processing speed or destroying the information on your system, spyware softwares literally install them on the system and, without your slightest knowledge, they steal vital information such passwords, SSN and credit card numbers stored in your system to their server. Hence, you must install some efficient anti-spywares on your system to protect your confidential data. Some of the most popular anit-spyware softwares are Spyware doctor, AdWare and Microsoft Anti-spyware.

Password Protection Advice

Passwords are the most important part of different online accounts. They are used to perform a wide range of online transactions and other activities such as e-mail on the internet. Hence, exposing your passwords is like making your money in bank vulnerable to stealing. Therefore, it is advised that you should not keep same passwords for different accounts. Further, you should not use guessable characters in your passwords such as you date of birth, you telephone numbers etc. it is always advisable to keep your password fairly long using a combination of both alphabets, letters and special characters as well. Moreover, you should never access your emails from any link in email; rather, you should open a fresh page for that.

Apply Latest Updates and Patches

No matter how efficient your anti-virus or anti-spyware softwares are; however, they are always prone to new threats. Hence, you need to update them latest updates and patches to ensure you machine is fully protected.

Firewall

Firewall protects you from potential hackers who can possibly hack your system and find out the vulnerabilities in your machine. Hence, install Firewall on your system to stop block the intrusion of unauthorized traffic or applications to your machine. Some of the very well-known Firewall softwares are Norton Internet Security and Zone Alarm.

All these software can be downloaded freely from the Internet with different versions. While downloading some versions might cost you a few bucks, but it is worth the spending. You should also keep on searching the net to update yourself on the latest anti-virus and anti-spyware tools being developed and available in the market so that the private and confidential information on your machine remain truly private and secured.