In addition to some tips that we listed in our post, Tips For National Internet Safety Month – Part 1, we are providing more tips that can help you to prevent your personal information from being accessed online. These tips come from OnGuardOnline.gov.

Install good anti-virus software onto your computer. There are many internet users that do not have anti-virus software installed and this is important to have. Computer virus’ can cause your computer to crash and destroy all the data you have saved. It can also give spammers access to your email which will send out a virus to your email contact list.  Good anti-virus software will update automatically and scan your computer for virus’ daily. You can find this type of software in office supply stores or from trusted anti-virus websites that allow you to download and install the software.

In addition to anti-virus software, install some type of anti-spyware software as well. Spyware is malicious software that is downloaded to your computer, without your knowledge or consent. There are some ways to tell if this type of software is affecting your computer, such as your browser taking you to sites other than the website you type in or unexpected activity such as weird error messages and slow performance. Some operating systems offer free anti-spyware software or patches that you can use. Be careful that when you download anything to your computer, that you trust the website you are downloading from. People who often download music, games and other file-sharing programs are more susceptible to this.

Firewalls are also an important part of protecting your computer. These are used to keep remote users from accessing your computer and can alert you when another source is trying to gain access to your system.

Be sure that your web browser settings are as secure as possible. Some web browsers offer the option to use the internet with either low, medium or high security settings. Use the setting that best fits your needs and allows for the maximum amount of security. Also, disconnect your computer from the internet whenever you are not using it so that it doesn’t sit as a dormant window to your information.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 10th, 2010 at 7:19 am and is filed under Articles Concerning Identity Theft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.