I read a news article today about how online crime will flourish in economic downturn. The reason given is – crime tends to go up when unemployment rises. Makes a lot of sense to me. When people are desperate for some money they will try all means to get the money. People these days are computer literate. Layoffs of many people familiar with net technology may tempt more into crime, simply because their chances of being caught are slim. Equally, the punishments for those that are caught are not harsh. Those that do not turn to hi-tech crime would find,an underground service economy that will sell them all the bits they need to get started as a net criminal. Card Games Online fraud will increase a lot in 2009 according to online security firms. Stealing credit card numbers is getting easier. It’s a lucrative area and it’s relatively easy to do. Those unwilling to become spammers or phishers, might well be a tempted into low-grade fraud – especially if they have lost their job or are struggling to make ends meet. Gambling tends to go up when economies are down,This might make people more willing to work alongside web criminals and act as money launderers or mules. Online Experts say. On the whole if you shop online or spend time browsing chatting or anything else make sure your comoputer is protected from viruses and trojans and all the other gazillion malicious programs on the some of the sites you visit. Most of the time you will not even know your computer has been compromised till something serious happens like you lose all you precious photos stored on your hard drive or you see some suspicious activity on your credit card. Change your password regularly and make it a very difficult one. These things do matter. Every little bit helps. I run a business from home. I take computer security very seriously. I have many programs protecting my computer including firewalls etc.. I use Roboform to create long hard passwords and keep it updated regularly to avoid passwords for important programs and on line activities I also use Antivirus program lik Pareto Logic Antivirus Pro to keep off the nasties. Don’t get caught with a virus or some password stealing trojan and regret later on. Happy browsing.