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Remember those old black & white War War II movies where spies run around trying to get as much valuable information from the other side and counter-spies being sent out to stop them?

These scenes still get played out everyday in every corner of the world, albeit unseen to the human eyes.

Today's battleground is your personal computer. The spies are the malicious codes that have infiltrated your computer. The counter-spies are represented by your antivirus program, your firewall, your anti-spyware and other similar software.

Like the spies of old, today's spyware enter your PC'S undetected and usually with your guard down. These can be from running infected software, visiting dubious websites like those offering pirated software or pornography and the list goes on.

And because spies are trained to steal information, today's spyware are out to get as much valuable data from you as they could. In relatively mild cases, spyware is used to track your internet surfing habits so that a marketing profile can be built around your online behavior. Then the spyware reports your preferences its creator. In this case, it is most likely a marketing research company.

In more serious cases, spyware are unleashed by cyber criminals to harvest data such as your credit card or social security numbers and the passwords to your online bank accounts.

There are a lot of reliable adware and spyware cleaners in the market that can remove these unwanted programs. The Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0
assures you of safe surfing as well as monitoring and blocking of attempts to retrieve and forward your sensitive information from within your Windows operating system. It also works proactively to prevent future installations of these technological nuisances.

Programmers of spyware and adware are more aggressive than ever. It was estimated last year that this particular "industry" is worth about $2-billion! It's no wonder these coders are so motivated.

As a user, you have to be secured from these threats. Once these malicious codes infect your personal computer, they can practically hijack it and access the sensitive information you store in it.

Even if you do not store detailed information such as database files or spreadsheets, other data like passwords or emails can still provide a trail for the cyber criminals to follow. Yes, they are quite sophisticated.

A good anti-spyware program should do the following:

1. Prevent browser hijacking, especially when you visit dubious websites that have a lot of unwated pop-ups;
2. Detect and remove tracking cookies. These are installed without the user's knowledge, also from questionable websites;
3. Erase or delete any traceable information stored on your browser's cache as you surf the net;
4. Allow you advanced options such as looking into files and areas that are normally inconvenient to access, such as your startup programs, browser helper objects (BHO), and ActiveX programs that are being downloaded or used.

The last option is probably for more advanced users, it is worth your while to learn these simply because an understanding of these objects goes a long way in enhancing the protection you will receive from an anti spyware program. Information on these objects are usually available from the anti spyware's homepage or just do a search through your favorite search engine.

New threats to your computer and online security keep popping up everyday. Sometimes they even appear within hours of each other. Such is the price of technology. The question that you should ask yourself is are you adequately protected?

If you are only running a standalone antivirus program on your computer, that may not even be considered adequate protection. Attacks can come from many fronts, some of which are:

• from malicious websites;


• from email attachments that are infected by a virus;


• from peer-to-peer file sharing;


• from downloading and running pirated software that is actually a front for a trojan

Most of the popular antivirus programs provide an entire suite of protection that can handle the above mentioned threats. But not all of them can protect you from the most aggresive of threats--zero day exploits. To those unfamiliar with the term, zero day exploits are attacks on flawed operating systems or softwares which have no fixes available.

In the world of information technology, news about zero day vulnerabilities travel fast. Software developers and testers may discover a flaw in a particular system and then announce it through a forum or blog. It is now up to the manufacturer of the flawed software to provide a fix. But oftentimes they are not fast enough in providing one and this lag is exploited by malicious hackers. So what kind of protection can you count on during that period when there is no fix?

In an interview conducted by the Government Computer News (gcn.com) website with Eugene Kaspersky, co-founder of Kaspersky Lab which produces the Kasperksy Antivirus program, he admits that there really is not much anyone can do while waiting for a software patch. So the best solution is to reduce the time lag between attack and protection.

The Kasperksy Antivirus program provides what is probably the fastest response to these kinds of threats through:

1. hourly automated database updates;


2. preliminary behavior analysis of your operating system and all installed programs; and upon gathering the needed information
   


3. provides continuous and on-going behavior analysis.

The hourly automated update feature not only provides traditional protection, but also updates the very program itself. Some experts have described this as proactive protection. The popular technology website C-Net (cnet.com) has gone to the extent of saying that "Kaspersky has consistently demonstrated the shortest response time to breaking new malware threats."

In the same interview, Mr. Kaspersky notes that there is a disturbing direction that the internet is taking towards criminalization. This is underscored by the fact that most malicious codes being released these days are aimed towards hijacking personal information which can be used to make unauthorized purchases with your credit cards. Identity theft is also commonplace--criminals can easily withdraw from your bank accounts by masquerading as you. The list of felonies can go on and on once these cybercriminals are able to steal your identity.

With more and more people going online to do their shopping, it is no surprise that cybercriminals are behaving like bees being drawn to honey, the honey being your money. So it is quite important that your antivirus program is up to the task of protecting your computer thoroughly. Your identity is at stake.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, a keylogger is a program that runs in your computer's background secretly recording all your keystrokes. So you're probably wondering why such programs exist and what purpose do they serve?

Actually keyloggers are one of the oldest tactics in a cyber criminal's playbook. You see, once your keystrokes are logged, they can now be retrieved by the criminal. The criminal then carefully reviews the information in hopes of finding passwords or other information that would prove useful to them.

Such is the basis for identity theft.

When you keep your personal and financial data on your PC or you do a lot online banking or transactions, you naturally have to key in your passwords or social security number or bank account number. Keyloggers record all these information and send them to the attacker.

Your next question is probably "How do keyloggers gain entry to my computer?" The answer can be varied but it simply boils down to two factors: 1) unsafe computer or surfing habits; and 2) unprotected personal computer.

The solution to factor #2 is quite easy--just install an antivirus program that can protect your PC from keyloggers, such as the Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0.

Factor #1 is a bit tougher to crack. This involves a certain level of behavior modification on the part of the user. It is basically premised on the fact that "old habits die hard".

What this basically means is that if a user 1) enjoys visiting "bad neighborhoods" such as porn sites or sites that promote illegal software; 2) is lazy when it comes to computer security; or 3) is careless about verifying the integrity of software that they receive or borrow from friends or colleagues, then the chances of being infected with malicious software is very, very high.

There is no "magical formula" to cure bad habits and all information technology professionals understand this. The best solution thus is to install a very reliable antivirus program and set it to update by itself. The Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 is certainly up to the task and it could be the closest you will get to that "magical formula".

Everyday thousands of people are getting their identities stolen by cyber criminals! If you have used your credit card over the internet recently, the victim could very well be you.

Identity theft is a crime that is becoming more and more common these days. The victims are just about anyone that you could think, including your very own relatives.

To steal a person's identity is quite simple, all the cyber criminals need is just one thing to get started on their nefarious activities - your social security number.

And if you store your personal data on an unsecured computer, then it becomes that much easier for them to steal it.

We'd like to offer you the "Protect Yourself From Identity Theft" ebook for you to learn more about this new method that criminals are using.



It's a free download and a small token of our appreciation for your visiting this page. All you have to do is to visit our identity theft page to get it.