Did You Know ?

The first computer virus was created in 1982 by Rich Skrenta a 15 year old boy in Pennsylvania, US, who named it the " Elk Cloner " .Skrenta put the virus on his school's Apple II computer from where it spread to his friends' floppy disks and displayed his poetry every time they loaded their floppies!

Internet Security :
(1) Typically most of the anti-virus software comes with a subscription which you need to renew every year or so .If you don't renew it (or forget to renew it ) you won't get the latest virus definitions and will not be protected against newer viruses.
        Paid anti-virus products offer well rounded protection  but if you would rather save some cash ,there are plenty of excellent, free alternatives that offer solid basic protection such as Microsoft Security Essentials (www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials),Avira AntiVir Personal(www.freeav.com ) and AVG Free (free.avg.com )

(2) Malware ( Software that is potentially dangerous ) is sophisticated these days. Even if a single piece gets onto your computer ,it will not only look at what information you keep on your hard disk (Credit card details,passwords etc.) but will also know when you are visiting banking and shopping sites. 
       The malware will then proceed to systematically log each keystroke and send your vital information to its makers. So you are basically at the mercy of whoever wrote the malware.
  There's an even scarier possibility. A hacker might take over your computer and turn it into a "bot" . This means  your system will then be a part of a larger worldwide network of bots known as a 'botnet' and will be used to perform a host of illegal activities -sending out spam ,attacking well known websites and scamming online shoppers-even as you play games and watch movies, blissfully unaware.
   The solution ?"Besides keeping your antivirus up to date use a firewall and make sure you keep your operating system updated with the critical patches that are released.

(3) Your best defence against malicious links is to make sure that you are using the latest version of your web browser .All the latest browsers offer stringent safety measures when it comes to malicious links.
Companies regularly plug security holes in their web browsers (and improve performance ) so make sure you're using the latest versions-Internet Explorer8, Mozilla firefox 3.6.3 , Apple Safari 4.0.5, Google Chrome 5.0.360.0 and Opera 10.52 at the time of this writing .

(4) Effective solution would be to use an advertisement and pop-up blocker like the free Adblock Plus program available for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox (Download it from www.adblockplus.org )

(5) Mac users were relatively safe till now as the Mac had negligible market share . But as Macs are becoming more and more popular new chinks are being discovered in their armour every day. Since hackers generally focus their energies on the most popular platform , they have mostly targeted Windows users till now (about  92 % of all computers in the world use Windows ).
      Operating system like Windows and Snow Leopard (what the Mac users) are complex things and no one can guarantee that they are loophole -free .