The best thing you can do for yourself, to protect yourself, is to have a firewall up and running along with antivirus software. The firewall comes built-in on most computers (Mac or PC) and is the most common defense in Internet security. It protects against data loss, computer corruption and hacker invasion. Firewalls come in the forms of hardware or software. Examples of hardware that carry firewalls include LinkSys, D-Link, and Netgear. Examples of firewalls in software include Norton Internet Security, Intego, CheckPoint, and Windows XP. The software will work by watching incoming and outgoing information for malicious software (known as malware). There are usually alerts to let you know of the attacks with options to accept or deny the traffic. Hardware firewalls work a little differently. This is an added layer of safety because the hardware keeps the devices separate from each other. All attacks are stopped before even touching your computer system.
