The best way to protect yourself from the wannabe hackers that lurk around on the internet is to start to think like them, it isn't very hard to outsmart these losers at there own games and even easier to catch them.

One of the most basic things to remember when using the internet is that it is easy to pretend to be someone who you are not. This means don't accept a file from someone you just met claiming to be a nice 12 yr old girl or an innocent first time net user, how can you be sure these people aren't wolves in sheep's clothing?

Never accept a picture from some one in the form of an .exe file .com file or any other executable file, pictures aren't executables and should never come in this file format, if you do receive a picture from someone in that format then you have been tricked and it is most probably a malicious program, virus or a trojan horse.

Sometimes these losers will send you trojans hidden in greeting cards in your email, it is very easy to spoof (use a fake) email addresses so don't take email addresses at face value and don't execute files that look suspicious. NEVER TRUST HOTMAILS ONLINE VIRUS SCANNER …. It has been shown to be obsolete and doesn't detect some of the most common viruses on the net today. (This has to do with the fact that hotmail runs on Unix servers and not windows servers. Doesn't Microsoft trust their own software? )

A common trick by hackers is to delete the victims netstat.exe file, if you have found this file deleted then you will need to download another copy from a friend and place it into your windows system folder.

Never ever let you computer remember passwords, this results in your passwords being stored in your computers cache memory, it is very very easy for trojan horses to retrieve all these passwords leaving you vulnerable to more and greater hacks. If a hacker gets hold of your dial up account number or RAS then he or she can use it to connect to the internet and hack people with your account possibly getting you in trouble.

Always use a firewall type program, if you do get hacked then you can block the intruder and stop it right away, look in our files archives for programs that will be helpful in securing your pc from the losers out there who think its humorous to pilfer through your personal stuff while your surfing the net.

Always use a process monitor: Process monitors are important because they let you see what programs are really running in the back ground. Process monitors enable you to see a trojan when hitting ctrl-alt-del will often show nothing. A good process monitor is wintask pro, it allows you to view running processes and kill trojan processes quick and easily. Wintask pro can also stop trojans from infecting your computer in the first place. you can get wintask pro here