Staying Safe on the Internet

These days hackers are all over the Internet, posting on underground forums, trading away your identity, bank account information, credit card numbers, paypal information and much more. Usually, this can be avoided using very simple methods!

The problem these days is the casual e-commerce advocate doesn't have the time to worry about protection, all though they should. Below are the five most common ways your information is stolen, and how you can fight it.

1.) Mozilla Firefox Stored Passwords

The FireFox browser has an option to remember frequently used passwords, this is probably the number one way your credentials are stolen! There are programs out there which extract these passwords and send them to the hacker. These days programs are becoming increasingly harder to detect and AntiVirus sometimes just isn't 100% reliable. A surefire way to protect yourself against this sort of trojan is to set a master password. You can do this by ...

1. Opening Mozilla FireFox
2. Click on "Tools"
3. Click Options
4. Hit the "Security" Tab
5. Check off "Use Master Password"
6. Set your master password, make sure you remember it!

Congratulations, you are now protected from the all common firefox password stealer! The program can not bypass the master password and chances are, never will be able to anytime in the near future.

Every time you start a new firefox session (close and reopen firefox) - it will ask you for the password. Just enter it and you're good to go. Keep in mind, this trojan effects saved passwords in Internet Explorer as well, so make the switch to firefox and use a master password!

I want to touch upon something real quick, the majority of people seem to believe that keyloggers are the #1 trojan used to steal their identity, well - it isn't! Keyloggers are extremely inefficient and it's difficult to hide them.

2.) Use Different Passwords

Thousands of websites are hacked daily, chances are you have signed up at one of the millions of websites that are hacked yearly. If you have signed up, chances are that you supplied a e-mail address and password. A very typical and effective method hackers use to get into your life is use software that attempts to login to your email using the password you registered on the site with. Some people may be thinking, that could never work! Well, you would be surprised. In short, Don't use the same password for everything. Use different passwords for your email, financial sites, etc..

3.) Don't give out your personal information

I know you have probably heard this thousands of times from parents or other websites, but people do not seem to understand how critical it is to not disclose your personal details on the internet. All you need is an approximate location (which can be obtained from your IP address) and a last name and a hacker can pinpoint your house from satellite.

A lot of people that own websites and have bought their domain aren't aware that their personal information can be looked up on sites like WhoIs to see your name, address, phone number, email, and much more.

Another point of importance is your routing number and bank account number. People have a tendancy to freely place this on the internet, wether it is on donation pages or simple site registrations. Banks are run by humans, humans can be manipulated. Social engineering is the art of manipulating people to get what you want. Hackers who have been doing this for years have no problem picking words carefully and getting their way into your bank account. Not too long ago, a man from the United Kingdom posted his routing number and account number in the local newspaper, a week later he sees a $1000 donation to a charity - what a shame. Don't give out your information!

Obviously trusted payment sites like PayPal or Moneybookers can require your bank account, and honestly - if you don't have to, then don't.

If PayPal or Moneybookers run into a problem with one of your payments, you're paying for it. All fees from chargebacks and such are deducted from your bank account. If you must add your bank account, do it with caution. Keep a close eye on your sales and purchases.

4.) Use a Firewall

I spend a good amount of time researching hacking and infosecurity, I'm a member myself of some forums and know this first hand. The malware that is auctioned off on these forums are using ground breaking code to avoid detection from Anti-Virus. Wether you are using McAfee, Norton, Avira, whatever..I guarantee you won't be safe. A virus will slip through and infect you, the only effective way by protecting yourself is using a firewall. A firewall monitors your internet connections and allows you to specify which programs are allowed to connect and which are not.

These days, fun little trojans that ruin your computer aren't common - hackers are about business. These trojans connect to the internet and upload your personal details. Well, it's obvious you can't protect yourself from being infected, but with a firewall - you can stop the virus from connecting to the internet at all. This completely muzzles the virus rendering it useless. You've been infected, you definitely should consider reformatting but atleast you didn't allow it to do any harm.

I recommend using Comodo for a firewall. It doubles as an AntiVirus as well if you like, but the firewall runs perfectly side by side with Avira.

In conclusion, use a firewall. These days you can't completely protect yourself from trojans, but you can stop them dead in their tracks and save your personal information.

5.) The fifth and final way to protect yourself from hackers is simple, don't be stupid! Don't run programs from people you don't know, don't torrent programs from public trackers, don't use P2P programs like Limewire, Kazaa, etc...

I don't know why people do this, but update your VNC server! There are thousands of people that still run outdated non-passworded VNC servers on their computers.

Here are some of the top five ways trojans spread these days

1. MSN Messenger
2. P2P File Sharing - Limewire, Kazaa, etc..
3. Torrents
4. USB & Remote Drive
5. Software Exploits

Stay safe!