Browsing the Internet Safely

(Note: This is a reprint from our March 2009 Newsletter)

One of the questions we are most frequently asked is how to browse the internet safely and not come in to contact with any nasty or malicious programs. Most people these days have heard of a Computer Virus, some have heard of Spyware and Malware and everyone knows that having an up to date Anti Virus program on their machine is vital in this day and age. The problem is that having an Anti Virus program does not completely stop you from accessing malicious software. It does lessen the risk, either through straight up blocking the program, or warning you of the possibility of a program being malicious and then requesting permission to continue. The problem you may ask yourself is, how do you stay safe? Those of us who are aware of these problems know a few ways of minimizing these risks and we hopefully can pass some of this knowledge on to you.

Assuming you have a virus scanner, probably the most important rule online is “know what websites you are looking at and what you are downloading”. If you are on a website that looks a bit dodgy (good indications can be several advertisements trying to sell emoticons, Viagra or the like), you need to make sure you know exactly what it is that you are looking for on the particular website. I will use an analogy to try and explain this one a bit better. Say you are walking down Kings Cross, shopping for a particular item. On the way you walk past an alley. Now it's possible the item you want is at the end of the alley, but there are some obviously undesirable looking people lurking down there as well. Now we instinctually know to NOT go down that alley as something unpleasant may be waiting down there. The Internet is very similar. It is massive city full of Giant Shopping malls and Theme Parks, but there are also dodgy alleys. The only difference is that in the real world we can all recognize these dangerous places. Not all of us are able to recognize the dodgy alleys that you will come across online.

Another good step is not using Internet Explorer, which is the default Internet Browser that comes with every Windows operating system Internet Explorer is the most commonly used Browser on the planet, which makes it a big target for people who write malicious software. A large portion of malicious software written is designed to attack loopholes and faults in Internet Explorer. Generally we recommend using Mozilla Firefox as a browser (download here), though there are other Browsers out there that do just as good a job. Firefox is free to download and is much less widely used than Internet Explorer. This does not mean that it won't function as well as Explorer. On the contrary, it has many more useful tools that can be added and downloaded to it. Useful tools like Flashblocker, which will stop any Flash images, which can have viruses or malware embedded in them, from loading on a webpage. Flash images are embedded moving images on a webpage, usually used for advertising or displaying movie files, like YouTube. What FlashBlocker does is stop Flash images from loading automatically, but allows you to run them by clicking on the Flash image that you wish to view.

One of the most common ways of having malicious software installed on your machine is for a website to have a popup window with an error that says something like “We have detected a virus on your' computer! Click yes to find out more information or to remove the virus!”. Ironically enough, this is usually a virus trying to trick you into installing itself on your machine. If this warning was not generated by the Anti Virus program that you know is installed on your' PC, then you can safely assume that this is some sort of malicious software trying to install on your' PC. You need to remember that in most cases, you have to physically install or browse to a website that has a virus attached to it. It is very rare that a virus can install itself without your active participation. Several Anti Virus programs have pop up blockers built in to them to stop exactly these kinds of attacks. Most Internet Browsers have programs built in to stop these pop ups as well, Mozilla Firefox has a particularly efficient one.

So, be mindful of where you are browsing (have you turned into a dark alley), think about using a different browser to Internet Explorer, and ignore any virus warnings on websites unless it is software you know you have installed.

Next issue we will talk about some of the free tools and techniques to help keep your machine safe from Internet nasties.