The Web is a wild place, with more than the NSA potentially out to get you. With the so-called six strikes antipiracy initiative in full effect, you never know if Hollywood is monitoring your peer-to-peer activity. Then there are the malicious hackers trying to reset email, Facebook, and Twitter passwords.
No security regimen short of complete hermitage can keep you 100 percent secure. Nevertheless, you can take a few simple precautions to maintain your privacy online and deterbut the most determined bad guys.
Secure the line
One of the worst online security mistakes you can make is to connect to an email, bank, or other sensitive account over public Wi-Fi. If that’s unavoidable—because you spend a lot of time in cafés, hotels, or airports, for example—paying for access to a virtual private network can significantly improve your privacy on public networks.
VPNs serve as an encrypted tunnel that prevents bad guysgetting between you and the Internet in order to steal your login credentials or other sensitive information.