Safety Tips for Using The Internet

Safety Tips for Using The Internet

Fast improving Internet services and new online features have made the Internet an essential part of our daily lives. Introduced only a few decades ago, the Internet has gone through some major changes and now stands as a synonym to both knowledge and entertainment.

As every good thing has some drawbacks, even our friendly Internet has its own set of problems that makes it unsafe for computer users. To help you ensure online safety, we have listed a few tips for you to follow:

1. Implement a firewall: Firewall is the first security block between your computer (or network) and the public network, that is, the Internet. To keep your PC safe from hackers and other malicious programs, it is essential that you implement a firewall and set your security options as required. All Windows XP and Windows Vista computers are shipped with a built-in Windows Firewall that you can enable to ensure your online safety. Many third-party firewall programs, such as ZoneAlarm (vsmone.exe) and Symantec Norton Personal Firewall are also popular among users.
2. Ensure the safety of your personal information: Many websites today ask you to provide your full name, address, and phone numbers. Before giving out such information, you must ensure that the Web site is trustworthy and carries the required security certificates. Never give away your personal information on dubious looking Web sites because the owners of these Web sites may use your personal information for malicious purposes.
3. Prevent virus and spyware infections: The Internet is one of the main mediums through which virus and spyware infections infiltrate your PC. Out of these, several viruses, such as the iexplore.exe virus may creep onto your system disguised as legitimate Windows programs and make it almost impossible for you to get rid of them. Additionally, if you love to try new freeware games and software, you must know that these programs often come bundled with adware and spyware programs. To fight these malicious programs, it is essential that you have a reliable antivirus and antispyware tool installed on your computer.

Note: Many users opt for the Windows Defender antispyware tool, which is a Microsoft product and can be easily downloaded from the Microsoft download website. When using Windows Defender, you may encounter the 0×800106ba error when updating the tool. If this happens, you can resolve the error by uninstalling and then reinstalling the software after registering its essential DLL files.

4. Beware of email spam: Emails are a fast and effective way of reaching out to people. These features have made email a popular tool for businesses to market their products to end clients. However, emails have also become a weapon in the hands of malicious minds who use it as a mode to spam users with spyware and virus emails. The increase in spam and infected emails has given birth to the antispam software. This software is designed to check all your emails for their authenticity and then download only those emails that are deemed safe. Most of the time, your antivirus tool is equipped with an antispam tool, if it is not, you may have to opt for a separate tool.
5. Be careful while making online purchases: You must be very careful while making online monitory transactions. Before performing any such transaction, you must ensure that the Web site you are using is secure and supports encrypted transactions. You must provide your credit card and bank account numbers only if you are sure that the Web site you are on is trustworthy and secure.

In addition to the tips listed above, you must also increase the security settings of your Web browser to ensure that you do not access any malicious Web site and download any infected content to your computer.

An ISP (Internet Service Provider) is the people (whom you probably pay a fee monthly) who supply you with a connection to the internet to do things from surfing the web to e-mailing friends.  An ISP can provide you with different types of ways of connecting to the internet and this depends on the ISP.  These connection types are usually one of the following…

• Dial-Up
• DSL (Digital Subscriber Line)
• Cable
• T-1
• Satellite
• Wireless Adapter (to connect to a wireless carrier’s network)

A lot of people have the internet service as an add-on with their cable television provider or satellite television provider.  Some have internet service provided by their phone company or wireless phone company.  Some just mooch off of a nearby neighbor’s internet connection by connecting to their wireless router (whether they are aware or not).   In short, an ISP is whoever gives you a connection to the internet.

An IP (Internet Protocol) Address is basically how your computer or device is identified on the internet.  Any computer or device that is connected to the internet has to be assigned a logical IP Address whether it’s from your ISP (Internet Service Provider) or your local router’s DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server. 

You can think of an IP Address like a vehicle’s license plate.  Every vehicle driving on the road (legally) has a license plate which is registered to the local DMV.  The license plate is kind of like the car’s identification card, which allows someone (usually a cop) to run the plate and find out all kinds of information about the owner of the vehicle in which the license plate is registered to.  An IP Address works the same way.  Every computer surfing the web has to have some type of identifying IP Address, whether it be an IP assigned to the actual computer, the router the computer is connected to, or the proxy server the computer is connecting with.  This address is what identifies a computer on the web as a license plate is what identifies a vehicle on the road.

A MAC (Media Access Control) Address on the other hand is the physical address of the NIC (Network Interface Cards) in your computer (something like a serial number).  On broadcast networks, such as Ethernet, the MAC address uniquely identifies each node (workstation/computer) for specific packet delivery.  If you enjoy analogies, you can kind of compare the a NIC’s MAC address to a vehicle’s VIN number.  The MAC identifies the physical networking hardware as a vehicle’s VIN identifies a specific vehicle. 

The reason I picked a vehicle for my analogies is to help readers understand that a dynamic IP Address can change just like a vehicle’s license plate number can be changed.  But a MAC Address (under most circumstances) cannot be changed just like a vehicle’s VIN cannot be changed. 

A static IP Address however is an IP address that you keep constant and never changes (and usually have to pay a fee for).  Having a static IP is useful for those who run servers or any type of equipment where you need for the IP address to always stay the same.

How To Get Rid Of Malware

Malware programs such as virus, Trojans, worms, spyware and adware can infiltrate your system through many different sources. These malicious programs replicate quickly and not only generate several computer errors, but also cause frequent computer freeze ups and crashes.

So, if your PC is suddenly bombarded with several computer errors and your system becomes so slow that you just can’t get any work done, its time for you to do an immediate malware scan and removal. The following are some of the tasks that you can perform to get rid of malware from your system.

(www.clupedia.com)

Use Malware Removal Programs

First and foremost, you need to use malware removal programs, such as antivirus and antispyware to perform a full system scan and detect and remove all malicious data. Before performing the scan, it is essential that you update these tools to ensure that they are well-equipped to detect the latest malware. It is also recommended that you perform the scan in Safe Mode. Because your Windows system loads with only essential processes in Safe Mode, malware scan and removal processes in this mode are more effective.

Clean your registry

Just like all other software on your Windows PC, even malware programs need to add entries in the registry to carry out their malicious activities. Some of these programs are notorious for adding embedded registry keys that cannot be removed manually using the Windows Registry Editor (regedit) tool. These nonremovable keys are usually added to enable the malicious spyware programs to reinstall themselves after they are uninstalled. To scan and remove these malicious keys, it is advised that you use a good and reliable registry cleaner tool to perform a thorough registry scan and clean up.

It is not good to have malware programs on the system. This is the reason why as a vigilant user, you must take steps to prevent them from infecting your system. The following are some of the tasks that you can perform to prevent malware infections:

Update your system

Software and hardware manufacturers release regular software updates of their products. These updates not help in improving the performance of your system, but also help in patching up any security vulnerability in the product. Because many malware programs are developed to exploit these security threats, it is recommended that you regularly update your operating system, device drivers and other software programs installed on your PC.

Install a firewall

A firewall is a great tool that helps in blocking non-trustworthy traffic to your computer. Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems come equipped with a built-in Windows Firewall tool. You must enable this tool to block malicious data.

Enable realtime protection

Many good malware removal tools comprise the real-time protection feature. When you enable this feature, all incoming traffic to your system is analyzed by the malware removal tool and any malicious attack is reported before it can affect your system.

Be a Vigilant User

Last but not least, it is essential for you to be a vigilant user. You must:

• Never open attachments that come with unsolicited emails.
• Avoid downloading software from unreliable sources.
• Avoid giving away your confidential information on dubious and noncertified Web sites.
• Check any external media before copying data from it to the system.
• Regularly use the malware removal and registry cleaner tools to maintain a healthy PC.

Imagine a place where people can go to sell their stuff they don’t want anymore to people that actually do want it. You know the old saying, “what’s one person trash is another person’s treasure.” But I’m talking about a place where you can put those old clothes, or that autographed basketball from Michael Jordan up for millions and millions of people to see and bid on. I’m talking about a place where you can put these items up for all these people to see and you don’t even have to leave your home! Well stop imagining because their is a place of such opportunity, but where there’s opportunity to make money off of those things you no longer want, there’s also opportunity for a well planned scam to take place. As easy as it is to buy something from a seller on ebay, it is just as easy to give your money away without receiving anything in return.

Ebay is great marketplace to buy and sell products. It’s where a regular old joe can auction off items he wants to get rid. Or it can be a place where someone can start up their on store and sell off their products. It’s great for those people who want to start their on business and have some good suppliers because there is no need for business licenses and legal stuff or even a physical building for your business (unless you need somewhere to store your inventory). You don’t even have to worry about going through all that merchant stuff because paypal can take care of taking credit card payments for you.

Yea Ebay sounds like a great place to make a little or lot of extra money, but their are a lot of things you should know and watch out for if you plan to use Ebay.

(If you know how to use Ebay and are familiar with it you’re free to SKIP the next two paragraphs)

First I want to explain how you can use Ebay. Lets say I have a pair of jeans I would like to sell on Ebay. First I would take some digital pictures of my jeans to show how they look and the condition of them. Then I would head to Ebay to Sell My Item. Ebay has a wizard that would walk me through designing my post which will feature my jeans. This is where I can type a description of my jeans. This is also where I would upload the pictures I took of my jeans so potential bidders can see what they are bidding on. Ebay will allow me to set a Starting bid (if I want one, or else it would start at $0), Reserve price (which is the min price I would let my jeans sell for), and a Buy it Now price (which is self-explanatory). I can also choose how long I want the auction to run for (1 day, 3 days, 5 days, etc.). There is a spot for me to enter how much I will charge for shipping, and also a spot for me to explain a return policy. Ebay also has extra stuff I can add to my post to make it stand out, such as bold, outline, color, themes, etc. Now I wouldn’t go crazy with the extras because Ebay charges nice little fees for every little thing you do to your add. After I’m done editing my add, Ebay will tell me how much my insertion fees are and will inform me of how my Final Value Fee will be calculated. From then I would just watch my jeans in My Ebay and hope I get some bids.

Now lets look at how to buy something on Ebay. Let’s say I wanted to buy my son a Nintendo Wii for his birthday on Ebay. If would search for Nintendo Wii and see who all has them for sale. When I find one I’m interested in I would click on it to read about it. From their I could keep looking, Watch the Item, or Place a Bid on the item. If I decided I wanted to bid on the item I would just click Place a Bid and would would input the highest price I am willing to pay for the item (even though Ebay will only display a bid high enough to win the item within my max bid), confirm it, and boom. If someone outbids me, then I must decide how bad I want that Wii. Let’s say I won the Wii, I would need to pay for the Wii (usually through PayPal depending on what the Seller accepts) and then the Seller should ship out my Wii asap.

Now that I have gave a brief summary on how you can use Ebay to buy and sell, It’s time to go over what you need to know and watch out for on ebay.

One of the best tools that Ebay offers you for protection is the Feedback tool. You can actually see what other Ebay users have to say about someone you may be dealing with on Ebay. Let’s say you are bidding on a high priced item and you just don’t feel comfortable paying someone this much money before you even get to physically see the item in person. Well in this instance you could look at the seller’s feedback and see what others had to say about their experience purchasing from this seller. The higher the feedback score the better.

Now for some tips on how to watch out for those people that are just out to get your money, or item without paying up. I’m talking about Ebay scammers. These are people who either put up a fake post to sell you on something that you will never get, or win you auction and don’t pay up, instead they try to get you to send the item to an unverified Paypal address before they even pay you.

To protect yourself from the Fake Posters…

-Contact the seller
-Check feedback
-Look over the description of the item to see if it sounds ligit
-Check payment methods

It’s good to contact the seller to see if they will respond. That shows that it is a real person selling the item and not a robot generated post designed by a scammer. Usually a fake poster will not have any feedback, but that doesn’t always mean they’re a scammer, this could just be their first time selling, it just means to beware. I wouldn’t buy a high priced item from someone with 0 or negative feedback. Also they may have very good feedback, but it could all be in another language, I wouldn’t trust this either. You should only buy from someone who speaks the same language as you so you can communicate with them. Also pay attention to their location. It’s much safer to buy from the location you are located in. For example, if you live in the US, I would’t recommend you buy something from someone located in Nigeria. It’s also a good idea to look over the description to see if the person actually put some effort into describing the item. A scammer probably wouldn’t put much in the description because they probably don’t even have the item to begin with. Also should notice what payment methods they accept. Scammers usually aren’t Paypal verified (but they can be sometimes) so they may say they take credit cards, checks, or money orders to get you to send them the money without going through Paypal. Scammers love Western Union and moneygrams because they’re instant and virtually untraceable.

To protect yourself from the Winner Scammers…

-Watch your auction closely
-Never send your item to an address other than their Paypal address
-Never make arrangements to sell the item outside of Ebay
-DO NOT SEND YOU ITEM OUT UNTIL THE MONEY HAS HIT YOU PAYPAL ACCOUNT!!!

When you are typing up the description of your item, make sure to put your “Terms and Conditions” in the description. What I mean is tell what your limits are as far as shipping, bidding, and any and everything you want to let people know, put it in there. When your auctions is getting down to the nitty gritty, watch it closely. (I always cancel and block bids from people with 0 or negative feedback unless they contacted me as per stated in my “Terms and Conditions”) While you are editing your post Ebay allows you to choose an option that will block all bidders with negative feedback, it’s a great idea to turn this on. While people are bidding on your items check on their feedback to see how it looks. You are in control of your auction so you have the right to cancel and block bids that look suspicious. Let’s say someone wins your auctions and you get a response from them saying not to send your item to their paypal address, they want you to send it to an address in Nigeria (and you live in the US). I bet you when you get an e-mail like this they haven’t paid you yet and they are not going to. Even if you have gotten an e-mail stating that “You’ve Got Funds in Your Paypal Account” don’t send your item yet. ALWAYS physically log into your Paypal account and see if you have been paid yet. A lot of scammers on Ebay have started sending “fake” Paypal e-mails that say that the money has been transferred to your Paypal, or the money has been processed but will not show in your Paypal until they have a valid tracking #. It’s all Bull, don’t fall for it. Never process a shipment until you have been paid, period. A great way to spot fake Paypal e-mails is to look at the sender of the e-mail. If it comes from a domain that’s not Paypal, then it’s probably fake.

Phishing is the act of convincing or tricking a user into giving away personal information. Phishing can come in all kinds of flavors. They can come in e-mails saying you won something and all they need to process your winnings and have them ship it out to you is your name, address, credit card information, and maybe even your social security number (which you should NEVER give out online unless you know your information is being transferred over a secure encrypted server). They always promise they won’t charge anything to it, it’s just for security purposes (yea right).

You may be thinking, I’ll never be tricked by one of these foolish scams, but think again. As I said before, phishing comes in many different flavors. Say you got an e-mail from you bank stating that there has been strange activity on your account and they need to verify you information. So the e-mail asks you for your personal information such as your name, address, SS#, etc. DON’T GIVE IT TO THEM, because it probably is an impersonator pretending to be your bank. This has happened plenty of times and is one of the leading causes of identity theft.

First of all, your bank (if is a legitimate bank) will NEVER ask you input your personal information into an e-mail and send it to them.

Secondly, even if there is a link in the e-mail they ask you to click on to go to the banks website and fill in information, pay attention to the address bar and make sure it displays your banks url. And look closely because a lot of phishers like to disguise their url’s to look as if it were the real site.

• Eg. Real - Phisher -

For Internet Explorer user, their is a great phishing filter already included in the newest version (Internet Explorer 7) to help protect against being phished. You can download the latest version of IE from Download.com or Microsoft’s website directly. To make sure your Phishing Filter is turned on…

• Open your Internet Explorer
• Click Tools
• Hover over Phishing Filter
• When the pop-up menu shows up, the second option should be either “Turn On Automatic Website Checking” or Turn Off Automatic Website Checking”
• You want it to say “Turn Off Automatic Website Checking” because this means that it is already on.
• If it says “Turn On Automatic Website Checking” then click on it to turn it on.

For Firefox Version 2 or later users, the Phishing Filter is automatically activated. To test to make sure your Phishing Filter is on and working you can go to the site below. A warning dialog should appear and you can just click “Get me out of here” to exit the site.

• Firefox Phishing Test site

If the site doesn’t show the warning dialog, then make sure your phishing settings are on by doing the following in Firefox…

• Click Tools
• Click Options
• Click Security
• Here make sure the options “Warn me when site try to install add-ons” and “Tell me if the site I am visiting is a suspected forgery” are checked
• And under the “Tell me if the site I am visiting is a suspected forgery” option make sure the “Check using a downloaded list of suspected sites” option is selected. Firefox does a great job keeping the list of suspected sites updated.

A lot of Internet Security Suites, such as Norton, comes equipped with Phishing filters also.

1. Never have an internet connection w/o the presence of an ACTIVE Firewall and Anti-Virus
   • Viruses have evolved to where they don’t have to be directly downloaded and executed anymore. These days even having an active internet connection with no virus protection is dangerous whether your are downloading and executing anything or not.
2. Use Firefox or any browser other than Internet Explorer if possible
   • Virus developers focus on distributing their projects to as many computers as possible
   • Roughly 79% (http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat_trends.htm) of surfers use Internet Explorer which makes IE the target browser for virus developers.
3. Don’t have your browser remember any passwords
   
   • Of course it may be a little quicker to access your online banking when your trusty IE browser automatically inputs your password, but those virus developers love to make those programs designed to sniff through your cookies to find that good ole’ username and password for their own ventures.
4. Never input private information (Real name, address, credit card info) into a site where there is no security lock present.
   • Eg. - or
5. Never give out your usernames and/or passwords to anyone.
   • When talking to people in chat rooms also be careful not to give anyone your real name or any revealing information.
6. Try not to use the same username and passwords for every login you have
   • It is much safer to use one username and password for you Online Banking, another username and password for your E-mail, another username and password for you myspace login and so on.
   • Using different usernames and passwords for your Online Accounts prevents hackers from possibly getting one username and password and logging in to all your accounts with that one username and password
   • The presence of dedicated servers in a web hosting deal ensure the safety of your domain registration as well as the uploaded status of web site design.
7. Never download anything that you haven’t researched first
   • Downloading something you know nothing about is a very serious risk to your computer. Make sure to do a quick Google search on any program you plan on downloading to see what other people have to say about it first.
8. When downloading and installing programs, don’t just install everything it tells you to in the installation.
   • Be sure NOT to install anything you may not want (such as yahoo toolbars, google toolbars, etc.) because they could come with unwanted adware or spyware that can be very annoying and possibly hazardous to your computer.
9. Always clear you Browsing History when finished surfing the web.
   • Delete cookies, history, temp files, form data, and passwords
     Firefox has a great feature where it can ask you to clear you Browsing History every time you close the browser.
10. Last but definitely not least, NEVER MAKE ARRANGEMENTS TO MEET ANYONE (in person) WHOM YOU MET IN A CHAT ROOM, MYSPACE, ETC.
    • This is very important for your own safety. Especially if you are under 18, but I personally don’t recommend anyone of any age to perform this type of arrangement. The only instance where I see that this may be appropriate is where you join an online dating community and you want to meet someone you met through the community. I have never been a part of any of these communities but I know that most of them are pretty strict about protecting their users, but by all means BE CAREFUL.
    • Parents please pay close attention to your children’s relationships with the people they meet on communities such as Myspace. From kids running away to be with people they met on the popular online communities, to pranks going too far and resulting in suicides, it all happens on Myspace and other popular online communities. Of course it is not the communities’ faults, but the careless people that your children could be associated with within the community is by far to blame.

In this day and age privacy is very important to everyone. When you surf the web maybe you don’t want the next person to see what sites you have been to. Whether it’s your banking sites or adult sites that you don’t want your children following in your footsteps. Whatever the reasons may be, there are ways of covering your tracks on the internet.

Clearing your browsing history is a great way to keep your private web surfing PRIVATE. In Internet Explorer 7, deleting you browsing history is as simple as…

1. Clicking Tools
2. Then click Delete Browsing History

From here you can delete a number of things like your History which is you previously visited sites’ urls, your Cookies which are basically small files that record information about you on the web (such as usernames, and login information). You can delete your Temporary Internet Files, which is a small cache that holds downloaded web pages and media so they can retrieve them faster in repeat visits. Passwords you tell Internet Explorer to remember can also be deleted from here. Lastly, Form Data can be cleared as well which is repetitive information you may have typed into forms such as applications or shipping information.

You may have heard people say that if you clear your cookies your computer will run faster. That may be true, but it’s not really that simple and straight - forward. A cookie is a little text file which your browser saves to your computer when you ask it (not necessarily with your permission always) to remember something.

Let’s say you sign into your e-mail and you check that little box under the password box that says “Remember Me on this Computer.” Well when that box is checked and you sign in your browser automatically saves your sign-in information to a folder on your computer (usually your cookies folder) where it looks for that information the next time you go to sign-in to your e-mail. Now one or two cookie files in your cookie folder is not going to have an effect on your computer’s performance, but after months or maybe years of not clearing your cookies may not sit too well with your hard drive.
It’s a good idea to clear your cookies for a couple of reasons…

• Security purposes
• Hard Disk Space

A hacker can possible get vital information from your cookie files, like your banking sign-in information for identity theft, or e-mail sign-in information to gain access to your precious love letters from your secret lover. Although cookies are generally very small
Clearing your cookies is actually very easy. Be sure to check out my Video Tutorial on Clearing Your Cookies.

According to testking, before sitting in the actual tests, you can appear in the mocks of ccie as well as other exams whether from mcse certification or the itil certification.

(Internet Explorer 7)

1. Open Internet Explorer
2. Click Tools
3. Click Internet Options
4. Under the Browsing History header Click Delete…
5. When the Delete Browsing History window pops up you have several options
6. It’s a great idea just to go ahead and Delete all… which will delete your Temporary internet files, Cookies, History, Form data, and passwords that you may have saved. But if you don’t want to delete everything you can just click Delete cookies…
7. Then Click Yes when it asks if you are sure you want to delete your cookies.

The best way to keep your computer protected from viruses is to have…

· Anti-Virus

· Anti-Spyware

· Firewall

Having an anti-virus program installed and running on your PC is by far one the best virus prevention techniques. An anti-virus program constantly scans and monitors your computer for any suspicious files or activity. You can also schedule automatic system scans to automate your system security. Norton Anti-Virus and McAfee Anti-Virus are two great virus protection programs and they cost anywhere between $40 and $60. Avast develops a free anti-virus for home users and it is great virus protection for the budget shopper. Make sure to always have the anti-virus program running for complete protection.

Having a great firewall installed is another must have against virus protection. A firewall monitors all incoming internet traffic for suspicious or unknown activity.
Beginning with Windows XP (SP2) Microsoft began to provide a great built-in firewall.

Some manufacturers such as Norton and McAfee have developed Internet Security Suites which include the Anti-Virus, Firewall, and Anti-Spyware all in one program. It’s great to purchase a full Internet Security Suite because it can be a little easier to manage, but their are some pocket friendly programs such as Avast Anti-Virus and AVG Anti-Virus which both provide free home edition anti-virus programs. They don’t come equipped with firewalls unless you purchase the Internet Security Suite, but if you have Windows XP Service Pack 2 or higher then you already have a great firewall (see Windows XP Firewall Tutorial). all three programs work better together when there by the same manufacture, and it’s also easier to manage the different entities.