| Internet security problems have plagued computer users since the first home computers were hooked up to the world’s largest network, the Internet. Many of the Internet problems that we saw in the early stages of the Internet were rather harmless. Most were annoying pranks played by people with either too much time on their hands, or a lack of attention being shown to them. Email bombs flooded a users inbox, viruses created pop ups, and harassing instant messages could be ignored.
Ever since the motivation for Internet scams and security breaches switched from ego and mischief to money, the scale of the attacks have grown as has the complexity involved. Nowadays, Internet criminals use their tools and their wits to scam money and information from unsuspecting people every day. Their attacks involve phishing for information such as bank account numbers, key stroke loggers for capturing passwords and other private information, email and online confidence scams like the Nigerian scam, and extortion where web sites are threatened with defacement or denial of service if they don’t pay “protection” money.
To fight these problems, the home and corporate computer user can employ any number of Internet security protection tools and steps that will make their travels online much safer. It is important to note that while computers and software programs are full of exploits for the bad guys to take advantage of, the one they can always count on is the piece of equipment sitting between the chair and the keyboard, the user.
All web browsers have an Internet security settings option. In Internet Explorer, the user selects Tools, and then Internet Options. The tab marked security allows them to set different levels of security by turning off and on certain features. The same can be done with Firefox by selecting Tools and then Options. When fine tuning your Internet security settings, a couple of basic rules of thumb are never set the overall setting lower than medium protection. This allows your web browser to still make use of most web pages functionality without leaving open any unnecessary doors. Another setting should be regarding Running scripts like ActiveX or Java. This should be set to Prompt or Warn Me. What this does is warn the user that the page being viewed is trying to install a script for full functionality. This warning is usually displayed in a yellow box under the toolbar. The user can then opt to run the script if they trust the page, or move on to something else.
For a stronger level of protection, some of the Internet security systems that are commercially sold may be an option. Norton Internet security is one such program. Norton’s Internet Security 2007 helps to block spyware attacks, helps to thwart identity theft and phishing attacks, scans for worms and viruses, and helps to block hackers through intrusion prevention software. Another nice feature of Internet Security 2007 is that is runs a system check to make sure the other setting on your computer are properly configured for maximum Internet safety. It then walks the novice user through the steps to fix any problems of note.
Of course Norton Internet security is not the only product on the market. There are packages from McAfee, AVG, TrendMicro, and other security companies. The trick is finding Internet security systems packages that you are comfortable with and using it. Remember, part of using this software is updating it and keeping the virus definitions up to date. It may a bit of time to update, but it will save countless hours is the computer is attacked.
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