How to be secure online?

Cyber crime in India has increased by 50% in the last one year according to The Telegraph India.

Got scared? Don't worry but don't relax. There are few key things you need to keep in mind whenever you are online so that you, your family, and your hard earned money remains sound and securely away from cyber criminals. 

Here is a list of must to do:

• Use proper security software which are legal and licensed. Use of world wide web without an antivirus is not imaginable right? But many homes in India still have their computers open to harmful things like spyware, malware or trojans. 

You will be surprised to know the amount of price this criminals pay to get your personal information from black market. But how did your information reach there you ask? Well you must have had spywares or simple harmless looking cookies that have send this information to the third parties.

Using free spyware-blocking-and-removing software will keep your private information private. Few of my own favourites are

1. Spybot-Search and Destroy
2. SUPERAntispyware
3. SpywareBlaster

• A hardware firewall exists or not install a software firewall that is regularly updated and keeps your ports secured and filtered.

1. Comodo Firewall
2. Zone Labs Firewall
   

are few of my favourites in this category.

• Keep track of what your children do online. A harmless chat with a stranger, which youngsters are very fascinated with, may lead to unwanted incidences of abuse, blackmailing and much worse things.
  

A website spelled with just one wrong alphabet or a drive by download may send her or him to a pornography website, which is the biggest form of cyber crimes at present, which obviously is not something you want.

• Never give away your bank or card details to anybody no matter who they claim they are. Remember only, and that is only your account number and IIFS code are the details that can be shared with somebody harmlessly. Avoid using or giving your card details to anybody online. Use secured services like Paypal or Paymate to conduct your online transactions. 
  
• Keep your password safe and in your head only! Change your password often and don't use same password for multiple emails, websites or services. They are your password and obviously meant to something hard to guess and not your birth date or your ex-name!
• Be aware and spread awareness of the legal laws and rights. Surf the net and you will easily get the detailed information about the laws regarding Internet usage in your country.
• Never open unknown emails or attachments. If you get emails that gives offers which are either too good or too bad to be true then of course they are false! Winning a lottery, death of a celebrity, asking donations and blah blah blah mails, sites or attachments should be avoided and reported to prevent other's falling trap to it.
• Download from safe, trusted, and reputed sites like Cnet Download.com. They check the  softwares for malicious files before uploading and hence all the softwares in this sites are free of spywares or trojans.

Be safe. Take care and let the Internet be a safer place for everybody.