Get Safe On The Internet

The internet is as safe and as risky as any other market

...and in any market money changes hands...and where money changes hands there will always be someone wanting to steal some, ...but with a few simple precautions we can make it very difficult for them.

Protect your Email Address...and use different addresses for different purposes.

There are several sources of free email, Yahoo, Hotmail and Google are perhaps the best known but there are many more.

Have separate addresses for different purposes, family and friends, shopping on line, social networking, chat-rooms etc. Only give any of your email addresses to people you know and trust.

Open with Care Only open appropriate emails in each category - ie if someone you don't know emails you about a special deal on your family and friends address you know it's not for real.

Only open attachments from known and trusted sources,

Be on the Lookout Spelling mistakes and identical emails from different sources always suggest a scam: be very wary.

Check the name of the website at the head of your browser page - scammers often use names very similar to that of reputable websites.

Web Protection Programmes Purchase and use a reliable and reputable web protection program like McAfee Internet Security or Norton Antivirus. Most eMail handling programmes such as Windows Mail have built in Spam protectors. Read up on how to use them.

Watch out for Phishing

Remember most fraudsters are after

* Your email address (as mentioned above)
* your bank account or credit card details
* your passwords and other security details

Your bank will never ask you for these details - they know them already - reject and report any request to 'update your details', get their phone number from your latest statement and check it up with a representative you know to be genuine.

Secure Sites - Reputable sites handling on-line payments all employ Secure Sites. A secure site's title as seen in the link bar at the top of your screen starts https:// rather than http://. That little 's' makes all the difference when it comes to protecting your money.

Honest sites also encrypt your details so that no one can intercept your account number or password in transit. When they do that a small brass padlock appears either in the top bar or the bottom of the screen. Unless you see both the 's' and the padlock do not give over any financial data - look for another supplier.

Your best defense - the one that works in real as well as virtual markets - is to ask yourself if you would buy a used car from this person.

Common sense is the best defense

Roger Webb has been instrumental in turning round a few ailing companies from executive positions and retired in 2008

He is now building up a wiki website for new-starters on the internet - http://www.computer-virgin.net