Internet access safty tips - Technology update

If you think devious websites are the only places where spyware awaits its victims, you are in for a shock. Spyware, which is software that steals sensitive user data without consent, lurks in many corners of the internet, often in places where you'd least expect it. All it takes is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time to compromise your internet browsing safety.

Is your state cyber secure? Or is it one of the most hackable? Find out in our Cyber Hygiene Risk report.

Here’s where the danger lies:

• You open your web browser and start browsing
• You visit a site and unknowingly fall into a spyware trap, such as:
  • A pop-up you click on, even to close it
  • A deceptive link that you follow
  • A clickable graphic that leads down a dangerous path
• Sometimes simply opening a web page or an HTML email starts the installation
• Spyware loads onto your PC without your knowledge
• Your computer is infected and your personal information is at risk

Spyware quickly begins its task of stealing your information (including credit card numbers, usernames, and passwords), directing your browser to suspect sites, changing or deleting your files, pestering you with endless pop-ups, and slowing your PC to a crawl.

Internet browsing safety

Internet safety can be deceiving. Seemingly reputable sites may contain spyware traps, or the sites themselves may be counterfeit—phishing sites posing as the real thing to lure you into their scams. The path away from internet safety often begins innocently enough; however, certain sites are more prone to be sources of spyware, including:

• Adult sites
• File sharing sites
• Social networking sites

Follow these internet safety tips for avoiding spyware and fortify your computer security right away:

• Avoid questionable websites.
• Only download software from sites you trust. Carefully evaluate free software and file-sharing applications before downloading them.
• Update your operating system regularly.
• Increase your browser security settings.
• Type in a trusted URL for a company's site into the address bar of your browser to bypass links in an email or instant message.
• Make sure that you have the best security software products installed on your home and business devices:
  • Use antivirus protection and a firewall
  • Get antispyware software protection

Stay safe online with Webroot

An unprotected computer is like an open door for websites that threaten your internet safety with spyware and computer viruses. Firewalls monitor internet traffic in and out of your computer and hide your PC from online scammers looking for easy targets. Products like Webroot Internet Security Plus and Webroot AntiVirus make avoiding spyware easier by:

• Preventing spyware and viruses from infiltrating your device
• Quarantining and deleting questionable content from the internet
• Scanning your system for malicious software 60x faster than the leading competitor scan time average
• Protecting your identity online with secure web browsing on your desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile phone
• Securing your system from keystrokkeystroke logging and webcam spying, Keystroke logging, or keylogging, is the act of recording everything that is typed on the keyboard for a given system, typically without the user’s knowledge or permission. Keyloggers can be software- or hardware-based, and can even have legitimate purposes. For instance, businesses or employers may install keyloggers to monitor how their computers are being used. However, keyloggers are most commonly used to steal information.
• Think about everything you type in a day. Various passwords, credit card information or financial account numbers, your home address, your social security number, the name of your first pet—there are plenty of things you type into your keyboard that you wouldn’t want someone else to be able to see. A keylogger on your system would record every one of your keystrokes over a period of time and expose them to the keylogger’s author, thereby giving them easy access to every piece of personal or confidential information you may have typed. 
  Because keylogging also has legitimate purposes, it can be fairly hard to detect. Additionally, software-based keylogging malware can live in a number of places on your machine, such as in memory or at the keyboard API level, and they can run relatively silently, so that you wouldn’t know they’re there from a computer glitch, slowdown, or other out-of-the-norm system behavior. Luckily, a number of antispyware and other internet security solutions include protection against keylogging malware. Be sure to use one of these to help keep yourself and your family safe from these spying threats.
• Minimizing your system's resources by using cloud services to provide a fast and robust method of securing your systems
• Providing 100% in-house support from our Colorado-based customer support team

While free antispyware and antivirus downloads are available, they just can't keep up with the continuous onslaught of new spyware strains. Previously undetected forms of spyware and viruses can often do the most damage, so it's critical to have up-to-the-minute, guaranteed protection.