Internet security is a big concern. How do you know that the wrong people aren't looking at your personal information when you're shopping, working with your bank, or looking at other personal information? And after you're done on the Internet, how do you know someone can't come behind you and look at your information then' Answering the former is actually easier than the latter. However, you can use Mil Shield to wipe all of your online and offline activities from your computer once you're done for the day.

Someone has already gained access to my computer. What do I do? The Mil Shield's encryption is not very helpful here because the hacker/software has gotten through security hole in either your operating system, or the software you run. To make it worse Internet Explorer keeps traces of your web browsing. These traces include Internet history, cookies, temporary Internet files (also called Internet cache), Auto-complete forms, and your passwords. Given access to these traces, an intruder has a complete history of your browsing and sometimes activities unrelated to the Internet. Sure, you can delete a number of these Internet Explorer traces.

You can only delete some of the traces but not all of them (refer article Delete Index.dat files for information related to hard to erase traces). Since there is no centralized or automate process available to clean the traces, it is a difficult procedure. But some of the traces are good for your net surfing experience. For example, Inter cache will help speed up your web surfing and cookies can protect you from entering your personal information again and again. Internet history will help you to type the addresses of the web site easily.

Any information you enter online often travels through multiple devices and computers before reaching its destination regardless of what you are doing. You need to make sure people cannot intercept these transmissions. There are special kinds of communication used. There is Secure Socket Layer (SSL), SSL ciphers (encryptions), and the information you are sending to the website deciphers (decrypts) it on the server you are accessing. How do I know if a SSL is used when I am entering my info?

First of all see the address bar and notice what the address of the page where you enter your personal and credit card information looks like. If it has https (where s stands for security), that means the page is using SSL. If only http is there on the address bar, then be careful. This page is not using SSL. You must type your credit card information and personal information only on the page with address https. Other web site pages where you need not give your personal information need not be protected with SSL.

With SSL protection, your information is safe from interceptors, and it decodes your information in the safety of a secure connection. How do you know the website you are shopping at is legit?

To find out, when you visit their order page and submit your information. The online store should immediately send out its digital certificate. What a digital certificate is an electronic identification that shows its identity to your browser, and verifies someone your browser trusts issued it. The certificate has to be issued by a certificate authority, which is a trusted third party. Not only does the certificate prove the identity store, it gives you a cipher to encode and decode communications keeping your information safe. When your browser approves the certificate, the secure server will encrypt all information before it is transmitted through the Internet.

by Susan Reynolds

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