One thing I’ve learned working in the IT field is that you can never be too secure. Make sure you have a strong password, only visit sites you trust and never open attachments in your email even if you know the sender. So many viruses ‘spoof’ an email address of someone you know, luring you in to clicking on an innocent ‘postcard’ or something like that which you think is from a friend.
Your password should change every so often, should never be used for multiple web sites and to be strong should take on the industry standard for passwords. That is, it should be at least 8 characters long, contain a capital letter, a lowercase letter and a number. Leo Laporte, host of the National Radio show ‘The Tech Guy,’ suggests using a line from a favorite song, taking the first letter of each word to which combines into gibberish to the unbeknownst but to you makes sense. And more importantly, is nearly impossible to crack as it isn’t a dictionary word.
Lastly, if you have a wireless router at home, make sure you have WPA2 encryption turned on. WEP is no longer secure and can actually be cracked with free tools available over the internet in a matter of minutes.
