Arguably one of the greatest inventions the world has ever known. The internet has opened up the business world; it allows people to communicate across vast distances, cheaper and easier than ever before. There is a world of information at your finger tips. More and more people are getting connected and taking advantage of the great wealth afforded by the net. There are however some fairly serious down sides, identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes. By taking advantage of unprotected surfers, stealing their personal details, hackers can run up huge bills in someone else's name and walk away undetected.

They say 90% of all PCs are infected with some form of spyware. Spyware is simply a little piece of software that installs itself onto your PC and literally spies on anything you do online. One way, the creators of such software nasties, are using to deliver their cargo is exploiting the popularity of Internet video clips, piggy backing on the latest funny videos. Spyware comes in many guises, Mal ware, Ad ware, Key Loggers, diallers to name but a few. They all aim to do the same thing, that is rob you of your personal data and generate revenue for there creators.

Key loggers for example, simply record every keystroke you make whilst online; broadcasting this data to someone else's PC somewhere out there in cyber space. Not a good thing when you are buying your latest ?widget? from 'widgets R us? and are typing in your credit card details, or when you are moving money around through online banking. Unfortunately however secure the website at ?widgets r us? is, the problem lies on the PC in front of you now. The key logging software is sat on your PC recording all the details you type in and sending this data to some remote computer. It could be too the far side of the world, or it could be to a PC next door, who knows where it ends up.

There is little ?widgets R us? can do as the next time you appear to visit their website they see the same details typed in, the same passwords and they greet you back again. The difference is of course it's not you this time, it's some cyber thief, buying your favourite widgets and you're the one paying for it.

The good news is it's not that complicated or expensive to protect yourself in the cyber world.

The first step to online security is to get a personal firewall. This monitors the data coming and going over your internet connection, acting as a shield alerting you to anything suspicious trying to broadcast from your PC.

The next essential thing on the list is a good spyware removal software; this will clean up your computer. The good news is there are a few freebies that work really well. You'll be amazed after running a clean up tool at just how much faster your PC will run. There are also a couple of software packages that act as a firewall specifically for spyware and ad ware, these will alert you should you be straying into an area on the internet known for spyware.

The final piece of your security armoury is a good anti virus software; this will protect you against viruses, worms Trojan horses and other viral software. That attempt to spread your data around the globe.

By investing in these three software defences you can feel confident in being able to cruise the internet super highway in safety.