Much of what also applies when you are using computers other than your own, though it is definitely worth reiterating a few golden rules to help keep you and your data safe and secure away from home.

When using public machines

The most important thing to say here is that you need to cover your tracks. Whatever you are doing – checking email, using eBay, whatever – try to find a machine with a browser that you are familiar with. That way you will be able to reset the browser before you leave, making sure that none of your passwords or login details have been remembered. Many browsers, including recent versions of Safari, Internet Explorer and Firefox also feature a “private browsing” mode – once enabled you can surf and use your logins without the computer recording any cookies, history, password details or temporary internet files.

When using your laptop or netbook

Use a screen lock and password-protected login so that, should your machine be lost or stolen, its data will be inaccessible. If you use Wi-Fi hotspots, avoid accessing your bank accounts and any other sensitive material, as public networks are notorious for so-called “snoop” or “sidejacking” attacks where data is easily intercepted by other machines using the same network. Where possible limit your activities to browsing that isn’t security-sensitive. And always try to disguise your keystrokes when entering passwords, just as you would with your PIN at an ATM. Finally, make sure you update your software regularly as a first line of defence against hacks.

When using a web-capable phone

As with laptops and netbooks, keep the phone’s firmware and software up to date, cover your keys when entering login details, and always use a screen or keypad lock that kicks in after a minute or so to protect your data should your phone go walkabout. Many handsets also offer the option to auto-wipe all their data after a certain number of invalid attempts to unlock the keypad. If you have an iPhone and an Apple MobileMe account you can use the “Find my iPhone” feature to remotely track the location of your phone, add a four-digit passcode and even wipe all its content remotely.

In terms of browsers, it is worth treating your phone just as you would a public machine and making sure that it doesn’t remember your passwords and login details by default as you browse. The same goes for any apps that require passwords.

A firewall serves to prevent anyone from even being able to detect your computer on the internet, let alone invade it. Recent versions of Windows come with a basic firewall built in, which will be activated by default. You can check by opening Control Panel > Security Center.

As for Macs, OS X comes with a pretty decent firewall installed; to check its status, or define what traffic it will or won’t allow through, open System Preferences > Sharing > Firewall and then hit Advanced to fine-tune the settings. There are various other products out there, but it’s certainly not imperative that you use one of them.

If you use a network router, then you may well find that it has its own firewall. If this is enabled then you can happily turn off the firewall software of any computers on the network, as they are hidden from view by the router’s firewall.

That all adds up to a pretty intimidating list, but don’t despair -there are various measures you can take to ensure that your data and privacy remain intact.

Keep your system up to date

Many security breaches involve a programmer taking advantage of a security flaw in Windows or a web browser. So it’s critically important to keep your system up to speed with the latest security updates. If you don’t, simply connecting to the internet or viewing a webpage could be enough to let in some kind of malware.

Recent versions of Windows and Mac OS, and web browsers such as Firefox, will automatically prompt you to download periodic updates.

Don’t run dodgy software

This includes steering clear of free downloads from websites which seem in any way untrustworthy, or which you reached via a pop-up or banner ad. It also means thinking carefully before opening suspicious email attachments, even from people you know – the message may have been sent by a piece of software without them ever knowing about it.

Scan regularly

Virus-scanning software keeps track of your computer activity to protect you from viruses, Trojans, worms and other such evils. No scanning software is 100 percent effective, but it does add an extra layer of security to your PC. (There are also scanners available for Macs, but for now risks seem too low to make them worth paying for.) Many PCs come with a trial from one of the major commercial scanning systems. However, you could instead opt for the free, but perfectly good, scanner offered by AVG.

AVG Free free.grisoft.com

You may also want to download and run SpyBot Search & Destroy, a free program for identifying and removing spyware:

SpyBot Search & Destroy safer-networking.org

Enable wireless security

If you have a wireless router at home, be sure to implement a few basic security measures. First, add a WPA password to make sure your connection is only used by the people you want to use it. Next, make sure you set your own username and password for accessing your router settings (a separate setting from the password needed to connect to the router and use the internet). Otherwise, anyone within range could log in, mess up your settings and even turn off your password. All these settings are most commonly configured via a web browser.

Consider switching browser & mail program

Many of the “virus” crises and other problems that have caused grief for internet users in recent years have relied on the fact that the majority of people use Microsoft’s default web browser (Internet Explorer) and email client (Mail or Outlook Express). You’re likely to be less at risk if you switch to alternatives – the most obvious choices being Firefox or Safari for your browser and Gmail for email.

Secure your connections

Whenever entering sensitive data (passwords, usernames and the like) into a webpage, make sure that the address at the top of the browser begins “https://” rather than simply “http://“. The “s” signifies a secure connection that uses the so-called SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or newer TLS (Transport Layer Security) protocols. Equally, you might also want to check whether the various cloud services you use employ secure connections. Though it may not matter for many sites, once you get into the realm of creating presentations online or storing sensitive documents in the cloud, you need to know that they are moving safely between your browser and the host server. If you are at all unsure about a specific service, drop them a line and ask for some clarity. If they don’t give you a satisfactory response, use a different service.

Don’t respond to spam

Those “get paid to surf”, “stock tips”, “work from home”, “recruit new members”, “clear your credit rating” and various network-marketing schemes are always too good to be true. If you get one of the notorious messages inviting you to take part in an African money-laundering scam, beat them at their own game: flooble.com/fun/reply.php

Beware the phishermen

“Phishing” is a cunning form of online scam in which someone pretends to be from your bank, ISP or any other such body, and asks you to hand over your personal information either directly or via a webpage. The classic example is a scammer sending out a mass email claiming to be from a bank, with a link pointing to a webpage purportedly on a real bank’s website. In fact, all the details are slightly incorrect (for example, the page might be at www.hsbc-banking.com instead of www.hsbc.com). But the recipient might not notice and assume the email is legitimate, following the instructions to “confirm” their online banking details on the fake site – in the process giving them to a criminal, who can then empty their account. The moral of the story is never to respond to emails – or instant messages – requesting private information, however legitimate the message might seem. Windows now comes with a phishing filter built in, but it still pays to be vigilant.

Be careful of “adult” sites

It is often said that the majority of online scams involve porn sites – the scammers believing, probably correctly, that the victims will be too embarrassed to report the problem. If you do ever use an adult site, never pass over your credit card details unless you’re prepared to get stung. And, whatever you do, don’t download any software they might offer.

Financial aggregators

Many of us use internet banking and will regularly log in to our bank’s website to check a balance, set up a direct debit or make a money transfer. Taking the service several steps further are online financial aggregator sites, which are becoming increasingly popular, particularly in the US. Their premise is that if all your investments, bank accounts, credit cards and loans can be managed by a single online portal, financial plan­ning and budgeting become far more manageable.

Mint.com is arguably the best proposition in the US right now. The site logs into all your accounts on a daily basis and presents all your transac­tions for you in one place; it can even do some clever things, such as automatically tagging certain kinds of transaction as tax deductible and alerting you if any large, irregular transactions are made (a useful means of identifying fraud). Wesabe is another strong option and handles your login details differently to Mint.com: without going into the techie details, the bottom line is that your logins are stored locally on your computer rather than on the Wesabe server, which could well be a deal-clincher for many people.

Mint mint.com (US)

Wesabe wesabe.com (US)

Aggregators have not taken off in the UK in the same way that they have in the US, largely because of financial regulations that limit the abil­ity of a website to harvest banking login details in this way. Egg, however does a good job of pooling multiple accounts in one place for its cus­tomers, while Equiniti is worth taking a look at if you have a portfolio of shares that you would like to manage all in one place.

Egg egg.co.uk

Equiniti shareview.co.uk

Shopping online

We are so used to shopping online that you probably wouldn’t online retailers as being “cloud services” – they’re simply websites where you buy stuff. But in the case of both Amazon and eBay, for example, when you set up an account with your own online inventory of items that you are selling and an easily accessible record of your purchasing history, they suddenly become very powerful and useful tools that you can access from anywhere.

One company that has made a big impact in terms of a fully featured cloud experience is Ocado, the online arm of Waitrose supermarket. Their iPhone app is particularly impressive, enabling you to easily complete your weekly shopping in around ten minutes whilst sat on the train heading to the office.

Amazon amazon.com (US) & amazon.co.uk (UK)

eBay ebay.com (US) & ebay.co.uk (UK)

Ocado ocado.co.uk (UK)

Online payment methods

Anyone who has used eBay will be familiar with PayPal, the company’s online payment system. You can also use PayPal on many other sites and avoid the need to spread your credit card numbers and bank payment details around the web. Another useful payment scheme worth subscrib­ing to is Google Checkout, which works similarly to PayPal, but has the additional advantage that it can be set to conceal your email address from online stores so that you don’t end up adding to your junk email load every time you shop online.

PayPal paypal.com (US) & paypal.co.uk (UK)

Google Checkout checkout.google.com (UK & US)

What with viruses, hardware crashes, computer thefts and other poten­tial risks to your data, it’s worth having some kind of backing-up strategy for everything that would be a pain to lose.

Local files

Anything stored locally (ie on your computer, not in the cloud) should be backed up fairly regularly onto some kind of removable media such as an external hard drive. Windows features a Backup Wizard which can help you set up a regular backup schedule to an external hard drive, while recent versions of Mac OS X come with a built-in application called Time Machine. Both can be used to back up all the data on your machine – your music, address book bookmarks and mail included.

Cloud files

In theory, anything you keep online should be relatively safe from dele­tion. Any cloud service provider worth their salt will be making sure that all data that they host is well protected and adequately backed up should they ever suffer problems with any one of their servers. That said, you may still want to occasionally back up online resources your­self. A Gmail archive might be one online resource worth considering. The easiest way to do this is to enable POP within Gmail’s Settings and then add your Gmail account to a “local” mail client (such as Mail on a Mac or Thunderbird on a PC). If you then regularly open the mail cli­ent on your computer it will effectively mirror your online archive.

Mirroring files

Taking the mirroring idea a step further; services such as Apple’s MobileMe subscription service and Microsoft’s Windows Live serv­ices can be used to sync emails, bookmarks and contacts between your computers and your online account.