Web Surfing

Credit Cards

Never put your credit card info into a site you receive via e-mail. The address can be spoofed or redirected, and you can give away your credit card without knowing it. Type in the address of the site you would like to visit yourself to ensure you are going to the correct place.

Security Icon

Always check for a security icon on your browser.This is usually In the form of a “lock” icon to show that the site is appropriately secured. If you don’t see this icon, don’t put your credit card information in.

"Reputable" Sites

Only go to “reputable” sites. A good guideline is if the store has a physical counterpart – Barnes and Noble or Amazon, for example, and you typed in the address yourself, it is probably a legitimate site. If you find “Bob’s Books” from a Google search you should be cautious about entering your credit card information.

“Save my Password”

Web sites or browsers often ask you to save your password. This will make it so that anyone who has access to your browser has access to all of your personal information. And, if you become infected with certain viruses, your passwords will be published to the author of that virus.

Spyware

Downloaded automatically from many sites. Some spyware is disruptive – logs keystrokes to collect passwords etc, some used for ad purposes. Use Ad-Aware to detect and remove spyware programs on your computer. http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

Logout

If you don’t log out of an application, especially a web based application, the next user may be able to hit back on the browser and access your personal information. Always LOG OUT and then close the browser when you have finished your session.

---