Being online can be risky at times. There are plenty of malicious sites that are there to catch you out for a vast number of reasons from sending you spam email to causing a catastrophic meltdown of your computer. Obviously this is a tiny majority of the sites on the internet but there is no harm in being careful. With personal data becoming increasingly more prevalent on the internet, we must be wary of potential threats to the security of our information.

Today, 7th February 2012 is Safer Internet Day, a security initiative being run by the European Commission’s Safer Internet Programme. This is a better time than any to take a look at how secure your computer is and what risks there might be to your data or personal information.

There are lots of ways in which you can make sure your being safe online. The majority of people online at the moment use some form of anti-virus software, such as McAfee, Norton or AVG . Make sure the definitions of the software are kept up to date. This means new threats are already dealt with before you have encountered them. The anti-virus software knows what to look for and will alert you to danger. Keeping your operating system up to date is also vitally important. This allows security flaws in your operating system to be fixed as and when the developers fix them.

Perhaps the easiest way to protect yourself while shopping online is to use a domain name that is verified with an SSL Certificate, VeriSign being the most popular of these certificates. Sites using them can be identified by a padlock or an alert in the address bar of your web browser, informing you that the site has been certified. Domainmonster.com is VeriSign certified and encrypts all personal data using SSL, ensuring the safety of your details. Also, we are PCI DSS compliant meaning we are tested and audited on a quarterly basis to make sure any credit or debit card data we store is entirely securely. We have made a real commitment to ensuring your data is safe, giving you peace of mind when using us. Being ICANN accredited means the site is regulated by the body running the Internet and constantly checked and backed up to reduce the risk of data loss.

Being safe online is such an important part of being a web user. The vast majority of security breaches can be prevented by simply keeping a good anti-virus program up to date, ensuring your operating system is updated regularly and using common sense when surfing the web.

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