How can you protect yourself from

becoming a victim of cyber crime?

To prevent criminals from reaching your personal computer it is important to have a good antivirus protection program in place as well as a firewall. Ensure you use spyware programs and of course that you keep up on all the security updates for these programs as well.

Protect your personal information. Although many now have pictures and their entire lives posted on blogs and other sites, they are playing in dangerous waters. Criminals can locate everything about you from something as simple as your email address. So, simply put, minimize the information you provide online. Don't give out vital information like your Social Security Number or anything else unless you trust the source and their use for that information.

When shopping online, always ensure that you are using secure sites for your e-commerce transactions and payments.

Password protect everything, and do not use the obvious birth date or mailing address or any other simple to guess password. Pick up instead a program like roboform that will generate randomized letter and number combinations that are not associated with anything in your life.

Some of the many crimes that are regularly committed with the facilitation of the Internet are child pornography, fraud, the sell and purchase of illegal guns or drugs, or other material that are protected by copyright. In the worst cases, cyber crimes can result in child abduction and molestation, and physical harm to victims. These heinous crimes have forced lawmakers and legislators to look long at hard at the state of crimes in relation to the Internet, and what laws are in effect to protect and prevent such crimes from harming those at risk.

Computer crimes can be broken

down into three categories:

1."Hacking" into someone's computer for the purpose of stealing by taking complete control over the information contained within, or gaining control over someone's computer in an effort to sabotage information or mess up the flow of information or crash the server.

2. Criminals use computers as ways to keep up with illegal contacts, such as drug dealers. A person who steals identities may use the computer to store stolen passwords, credit card info, and other sensitive information in furtherance of an illegal act.

3. The other way in which criminals utilize the computer to further illegal acts is through the act of communication. Email accounts on a computer can be used to set up any number of unlawful acts.