Security and Privacy on the Internet

One of the first things you will want to do is to download and install a good firewall program. Some cost as much as $50 or $60 and require some, sometimes extensive, knowledge of networking. The one I use is free for personal use and very effective. You can use it with the installation settings, then when you become comfortable with it change a couple of settings so that it doesn't ask permission for your programs to access the net. It will notify you and ask your permission for any program to access the internet. It remembers your answer if you grant permisson, but asks each time you use a program that you haven't given permisson to. That prevents password stealer Trojan horses from sending your passwords out. It also prevents viruses from sending themselves out if your computer becomes infected. Note than many viruses use email to distribute themselves, so a firewall can't block them if the email program has permission to access the Internet, and the email program can't work if you don't give it permisson. Catch-22. The second thing it does is to make your computer "invisible" to anyone who might try to exploit vulnerabilities to gain control of and use your machine. It does that by blocking any access to the connection "ports" your machine can communicate through. It effectively makes your machine invisible to attackers. The program is ZoneAlarm from www.zonelabs.com . You can use this link to go directly to the download page to download ZoneAlarm .

After you install ZoneAlarm, you can check its effectiveness by using ShieldsUp at www.grc.com . First click on the name ShieldsUp, then at the next page click on Test My Shields. The result will tell you that you have the ultimate protection of what they call Stealth mode, and explain what that is. If you haven't installed ZoneAlarm or another firewall program yet, go use the ShieldsUp test and see just how vulnerable your machine really is.

You also need virus protection. On average, 10 new viruses are discovered each day. Regardless of which anti-virus program you use, you must keep its reference or definition files up to date. That means visiting the supplier's web site at least twice a month to download updates. You can have your computer scanned for viruses on-line by visiting the Trend PC-cillin site at www.antivirus.com or the Macaffee site at www.macaffee.com and using their on-line scanners. It will take a while, so eventually you will want to purchase a copy of the program. They are not expensive, and they are essential if you are going to use the Internet.