Welcome to the Internet Security section of the site. I will try my best to cover the topic on Internet Security, but would be happy to get some help from other people with more expertise in this area. If there are any errors that I made or said on this site, please correct me. This will help others who are reading this section also. Thanks.

One of the major concerns today is security. This is especially true when it's regarding online security. There are many online crimes that are committed daily, from stealing a person's credit card information, to stealing their identity. We've also encountered virus attacks when we either check our email or open up a file that we may or may not know about. Some of us are cautious and are protected from these malicious attacks, while others are not so lucky. There are many ways to prevent these things from happening by following these simple rules:

1. NEVER, EVER, open attachments from someone who you don't know. Don't open it even if it's from someone you know, unless you have a antivirus program installed and it's set to autoprotect your pc. Your friend might be infected with a virus without knowing it and it might have been attached to the attachment that he/she sent you.

2. NEVER, EVER, give out any personal/credit card information to a site without first acknowledging that it's a legitimate site. Most will have a privacy statement of some kind. Make sure that they site you are giving your credit card information to is encrypted. You can tell if it's encrypted, assuming you use Internet Explorer, when you see a gold lock on the bottom of the browser that is in the lock position. You can also check by looked at the URL. For example, for Paypal, when you sign in, you will see that the URL is https://www.paypal.com instead of http://www.paypal.com. See the difference? It's the extra s in https. Pay special attention to some emails that says they need to verify your username and password. They usually give you a phony site to steal your information. The safest thing is to login by typing in the site yourself. Don't click on the link they provide you.

3. Make sure to get an antivirus program installed on your computer to protect yourself from viruses. You don't have to get one that cost you money if you don't want to spend any. You can get free antivirus programs at the download site. When you install it, make sure to enable it to autoprotect your pc at all times. Also check daily or weekly to see if they are any virus definition updates. This will ensure that you have the latest virus definitions to protect your pc from any of the current known viruses.

4. Get a firewall if you are on fast internet connection (ex: anything faster than 56k). A firewall will protect your pc from being hacked by outside intruders. If hacked, they can see your files, take control of your pc and do other not so nice things to it if they wanted to. If you have dialup, I wouldn't worry too much. You can get free firewall programs at the download site.

5. You will also need a spyware program to remove any spyware or adaware programs on your computer. These programs are usually installed by free programs that you may have downloaded and tried out. Always check to make sure that free programs don't come with any spyware or adaware. They can slow down your system and collect information from your pc. These information may include what sites you go to online, your personal information, credit card information, etc. Spyware and adaware are just as bad as viruses, if not worse. So get a spyware removal/detection program at the download site.

I hope this section was helpful and informative. If anyone has anything else to add here, please feel free to email me.