How to Safeguard Our Personal and Financial Data

It's now easy to steal a person's identity for financial gain. According to the Federal Trade Commission estimates there are nearly 10 million victims of cyber fraud every year.

The dangers come in many forms: viruses and worms, malicious software that embeds itself in a user's computer, online lures and scams, scam Web sites that exist solely to steal personal information. Therefore it is important to take extra security precautions to safeguard the data in order to prevent lost of private and confidential information.

Step 1 Software

Choose the software that have the ability to scan all downloads, e-mails, attachments and other files for malicious content. The National Cyber Security Alliance recommends software that can recognize current and older viruses, effectively reverse damage and update automatically.

Step 2 Firewall

Firewalls help keep hackers from using your computer to send out your personal information without your permission.

Firewall is like a guard, watching for outside attempts to access your system and blocking communications from to the source you don’t permit. For your firewall to be effective, it needs to be set up properly and updated regularly.

For a free trial of a firewall, check out download.McAfee.com or www.Symantec.com/downloads. McAfee and Symantec also offer anti-virus software.

Step 3 A filtering technology

A filter is use to scan inbound and outbound information. A filter can scan the text of an e-mail and block it if it contains certain words, set to accept e-mail from known users only and be used to test the header of an e-mail to see if it might be forged or disguised by a spammer to avoid detection. Some current filtering software encrypts passwords and information to keep it away from malicious Web sites and hackers.

Step 4 Choose your PIN number wisely

While you want to choose something you will remember, please do not choose something that a clever thief could figure out just by learning your birth date or your child’s name. It is advice that a combination of uppercase or lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols will offer more security.