Chapter 4. Surf Safe

Welcome to the danger zone!

As soon as we plug the PC into the wall, into the global network, we're in no man's land. Flying malwares fill the air, and however much we have secured the network locally, we and our data are in the line of fire, and susceptible to social scams and zero day attacks.

And that's just on a trusted machine. The threat level redlines when we're out and about, sharing PCs and hot-spotting wireless connections.

Let's prepare for and strengthen these weak links and, while we're about it, lock down the browser and chain up our mail. Here are the marching orders:

• Secure the router and consider advanced firmware

• Tackle public PC and hotspot wireless issues

• Pin down e-mail clients, locally and remotely

• Appraise browsers before firming up Firefox

• Crack out anonymous, encrypted web activity

• Become a trifle concerned about social networks

First though, before surfing off into the Wild Wild West that is the dub-dub-dub, let's browse a little closer to home to bulletproof...