Think Your Web Surfing is Private? Think Again!

Thinking of your Internet use as a security issue is one of the best ways to protect your personal information and the integrity of your computer system. Like it or not, your web usage is relatively easy to trace back to your ISP and from there it’s a very simple matter to trace it directly to you.

That said, there are ways to protect your privacy online. When you use the web you need to be aware of what information you are sharing, how that information is being communicated and how it can be used. Understanding technology is the key to making more powerful use of it.

IP Address

The Internet Protocol is the technology that allows you to request information from a remote web site and have it sent back to your computer. When this happens, your computer transmits a unique address, called an “IP address” consisting of four “quads” to the remote site. This is what makes it possible for the remote web site to know where to send the requested data.

Almost all web sites record these IP addresses along with the date and time and what was accessed, kind of like the phone company used to record who called who and when. There are few laws that mandate this information be kept private.

Account Logins

Sites with memberships like Yahoo! or Google Mail require their users to log in with a unique user name and password. This information, along with potentially a list of financial data, purchase histories and various other kinds of data are stored on that company’s remote servers. We’ve all heard the stories of servers being broken in to and personal data being stolen. It is no longer a rare occurrence when someone’s personal information finds its way into public view through a data breach like this.

Malware

As strange as it may seem, some hackers are able to plant viruses on user machines where they can find personal information and then quietly upload it to a remote site. Financial data can be stolen in this way and then used by the hacker to cause all kinds of chaos for a computer user. It doesn’t take anything unusual to put a computer at risk of coming into contact with one of these viruses.

What Users Can Do

Security on a home or business computer should be treated as a priority. Thinking of web use like any other IT security problem will go a long way towards helping families and small businesses avoid the kinds of problems that come with careless or potentially unsafe web use can invite.

Software updates are the best place to start. Machines should be kept up to date with the latest patches and updates from security vendors. Personal computers should be behind a hardware firewall or have a top-quality and properly configured software firewall installed from day one. Users should never open binary file attachments in e-mail and should never download anything from untrusted sites.

While these measures aren’t foolproof, they will go a long way towards restoring some level of privacy and security on your personal computer, and you’ll find these measures go a long way towards protecting mobile phones as well.

Security requires constant effort and consistent re-evaluation. But once you’ve established a good policy, you’ll likely find the extra time and expense is worth it.