If you are a person that surfs the internet a lot, you are bound to run into web sites that can be considered sketchy at best. When a person encounters one of these sites, instead of being on alert as they should, they go to the normal human instinct which is to be curious. Unless you are a really pessimistic person, then you probably have faith in most people. Unfortunately when it comes to the internet, that faith in people can cause you and your computer to be vulnerable. If you visit a web site and you feel that something is wrong, then you should really trust your instincts. In this article we will show you what to look for when you detect a web site is up to no good. We will walk you through the many signs that will let you know if you can trust the web site or not. Some of these signs may seem basic to the advanced user but to the newer people that are on the internet, they can be a life saver.

The first thing that you want to look out for when you a visit a site that you suspect may be a phising site is the domain name. Yes this seems simple enough but you would be surprised by the many phising sites that are using a domain name that look nothing like the web site that they are trying to spoof. People just remember what a site looks like and if it matches, they think that they are there. They have no idea that a web sites design can be faked pretty easily. So if you are a person that does not understand how the pinning’s of the internet works, then you should learn how to spot if you are on the right domain name or not. It is as simple as looking at the address bar but you must also be sure that the domain name is spelled right. If the spelling is even a little bit off then that means that you are on the wrong web site.

The next thing that you should look out for is if the site is secured or not. What we mean by that is that there should be a little yellow lock at the bottom of your browser. This means that the web site is operating under the SSL security protocol. This is especially important if you are putting any kind of personal information, such as your credit card or social security number in the web site. If the site does not have that lock, then you should be very suspicious. The SSL certificate can be faked but most of the time people who create a phising site would not go through all of that trouble. So if the site does not have a lock when they are asking you to place your personal information in it, then it should be avoided at all cost.

Spotting a phising site can be very tricky if they are made especially well. Fortunately for you, most are not. If you run into the average phising site then there will be signs of it being a phony right away.

The biggest security threat that we have in 2010 is the threat of botnets forming and becoming too powerful. Everyone who has hosted a web site that was the victim of a DDOS attack has most likely seen the damage that a botnet can do. Even some of the bigger sites are falling victim to the ever increasing powers of a botnet. They have grown bigger over the years and this is a real problem. At one point, they were mainly used for a DDOS attack; but now they are now being used for sending spam and delivering viruses and other malware across the internet. If you own Windows 7, you are already half way there from keeping your computer from becoming infected. But even though the security protection in Windows 7 is good, there are several things that you must do to make it even better.

I guess that we should explain what a botnet is before we go any further. It will be hard to explain to you on how to defend yourself from something that you don’t even know what it is. So in short, a botnet is a bunch of computers that a remote black hat hacker has taken control over. After they have taken control over the computers, they are now known as zombie computers. The owners of them may not even know that anything has happened to them. Most botnet owners these days like to keep their ownership of the computer quiet. If the owner of the computer knows that they are on there, they will try to get it fix and erase the program that is controlling the computer. So the botnet owners only take control of the computer when they need it. This means that if they have something that needs to be distributed to a large amount of people, or an attack needs to happen, they turn on the zombie network and then let it go to work. They also rent out the botnet to other interested parties so that they can do their dirty work for them as well.

To keep your computer safe from becoming part of a botnet, you need to make sure that it is safe from infections. Most systems are turned into a zombie from a Trojan that was able to access your computer without you realizing it. You can stop this by making sure that your antivirus is up to date and that you run a scan over your computers hard drive frequently. Stopping these little pieces of malware will help keep your computer out of larger trouble.

Windows 7 is well equipped from protecting itself from infection. But the use of a good antivirus and common sense can go a long way in keeping your computer even safer.

The one thing that has been proven to get someone’s attention is a catchy headline. Especially, if the headline is about a celebrity or some scandal that has happened to a politician. It is like driving past a car accident, you do not want to, but you cannot help but look at the accident scene. Everyone gets mad at the person ahead of them who does it, but by the time they get to the accident they are looking as well. Black hat hackers use this curiosity against you to get what they want. They use a sensational headline that is popular that day and make it so that you just have to click on it. Once you have click on the story, then you computer will pay the price.

A good example of this is what happened when Michael Jackson died. There was no bigger news story than Michael Jackson dying for the next couple of weeks. The stories were especially prevalent on the social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Michael Jackson stories were everywhere and so were brand new ways to infect user’s computers. People were eating up the Michael Jackson news so black hat hackers took the opportunity and spread infections to a lot of unsuspecting people. So much so, that several popular web sites had to issue warnings telling people to watch out for this kind of attack. The safe thing to do was to only get sensationalist news such as this from web sites that you were familiar with. At the very least, get the news from web sites that were visited by people that you knew already. Randomly clicking on links in Twitter was bound to lead you to some bad places on the internet.

The Michael Jackson story was not the only time this has happened. There have been a few others stories over the past couple of months that this has happened to as well. Every time you hear about a big story breaking, you can be sure that there is a black hat hacker waiting to take advantage of the commotion. Lately they have even been making up stories so that people will click on the infected links. Even though the stories get debunked soon after it hits the internet, that still gives an attacker enough time to infect a lot of computers. A short burst like that can probably give them a better click ratio than they would get by using their normal tricks.

When you see news breaking or a story that seems unbelievable, always check a site that you know first before you go to any strange web sites. You have to remember that there are people that are trying to get into your computer. It is your job to head them off at the pass. You can do this by going to reliable web sites and not clicking on every link that seems interesting.