The following site allows you to check to see if your Social Security Number or Credit Card Numbers have been compromised, and can be found in any of over 2 million known pieces of stolen data.

https://www.stolenidsearch.com/
This is a legitimate service, and it can help you protect your numbers and identity from fraud. There is no charge for this service.

For more information, please refer to the following article in the New York Times:

Think Your Social Security Number Is Secure? Think Again

There seems to be a new spat of “advanced fee lottery scams” arriving via email (or snail mail). Don’t fall for these scams.

Any mail that seems to advise you that you have won the Lottery is a scam. Don’t every respond to any such email.

If you do, you will find that you will have to advance some money in order to “process your winnings” or some such excuse.

This is illegal! If you advance any money to these clever scammers, you will never see your money again, and you will never receive any winnings. Period.

Click on the thumbnails to see two recent examples of “You won the Lottery scams” (after viewing, use your ‘Back’ button to return to this page).

Again, these “You won the Lottery emails (or letters)” are all totally bogus scams. Every last one of them. Don’t fall for them. Unfortunately, each year, these scams snag thousand of victims, who loose millions of dollars.

For a real case example, refer to the following link:
http://www.aarp.org/bulletin/consumer/a2004-12-09-cantwin.html

Hey, check that router!

If your router, or DSL modem, is still set to use the default password, and/or is set to allow remote administration with a default or weak password, then you are stark naked on the Internet baby!

So button up. It is free. It is easy. Do it now!

Give your router some clothes, give it a strong password.

PS: While you are getting dressed, it doesn’t hurt to add an extra layer of clothes: It is called a firewall.

Think of it this way. A router, or DSL modem generally provides a rudimentary hardware firewall. This is like putting on your underwear. (If it is secured with a strong password).

Adding a serious software firewall, like Zone Alarm, or a serious hardware firewall, like SonicWall, is like putting on your clothes.

So dress up already!

Panda Software’s new scanning engine, called NanoScan, is astoundingly fast and offers scanning for over 600,000 viruses and malware infestations. In tests, it scanned complicated systems in about one minute.

NanoScan requires an ActiveX control, that must be downloaded an installed.

NanoScan can be found at the following link:
http://www.nanoscan.com/

Highly Recommended.

After scanning with NanoScan, Panda offers an even more thorough scan, called ActiveScan2, or a number of more narrowly targeted scans. ActiveScan2 claims to be the most through online scanner available. ActiveScan2 will require between 5 minute and an hour to scan the typical system, depending on the options selected.

Also Highly Recommended.