Internet safety starts with a little knowledge about what the vulnerabilities of the internet are. First, a little common sense is the most important thing.
Realize that any information you send over the internet can potentially be intercepted by someone with the means and know how.
That being said, I don’t think that means you shouldn’t use your credit card online. I would suggest perhaps a credit card with a very limited balance be used if you are really concerned about theft. You need to monitor your charges to be sure that no one has stolen from you. Be sure that anytime you are sending sensitive info over the internet that there is a sufficient level of encryption in place between your pc and the remote website.
Privacy and security settings within your Internet Explorer browser need to be set at LEAST to medium-high safety. and I recommend that you TURN OFF ACTIVEX, JAVA, SCRIPTING unless a trusted site requires these features be turned on.
Educate children on the dos and don’ts of internet surfing. They need to know that providing personal information such as full names, street address, school name, phone number, even pictures, are potentially dangerous to give out over the internet. Children should be informed that visiting unapproved websites can be detrimental to the entire family.
Web proxys that block your ip address from websites you visit is one small way to protect your privacy.
Never assume that someone who contacts you regarding personal information is privileged to have such info. Be smart - a bank would never email you asking for your password.
Passwords safety is frequently overlooked detail in maintaining internet safety. change your passwords often. Don’t use letter or number combinations that are easy to guess, like “QWERTY” or “123456″. Use a mix of numbers letters, upper and lower case characters.
Don’t keep your computer turned on 24 hours a day! If you must, be sure to use a strong firewall that allows you to monitor traffic IN and OUT of your computers internet connection.
Do not keep passwords to bank accounts or other very important websites stored on the computer. Don’t allow your browser or other applications to remember the passwords and fill in the blanks for you when prompted for the password.
Keep several email accounts: one for business contacts, friends and family, the other for corresponding to unknown businesses or internet marketers, or free internet products. Responding to freebies on the internet and providing your email address is guaranteed to have your inbox full of junk mail. If you provide a throwaway email address for these purposes then you won’t mind starting over with a new email account when the old account is overrun with junk.
Don’t read/open any unsolicited email. Don’t have new email automatically downloaded to your pc. Where possible read all email as plan text messages and of course have email virus scanners running and fully updated with the latest anti-virus definitions.
Only use your computer in a restricted access user profile unless you absolutely need administrator privileges (i.e. only use an account with administrator privileges for doing system maintenance - not surfing the internet.)
Give every user of your computer their own user account with password. Finally….
Use a firewall - software or hardware variety. Maintain several varieties of Anti-virus, Anti-spyware programs and keep your operating system updated with the latest security patches. Now go be safe and avoid a nasty computer fix!