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Managebased recommends the following best practices to help protect you from unwanted attacks:
  • Never send personal or sensitive information such as credit card numbers, account numbers, Social Security numbers or passwords through email or Instant Messaging.  These are NOT secure channels and should never be used to do this.
  • Practice good password habits.  For example, never use simple, easy to guess passwords.  When possible, incorporate at least one or more numbers or special characters, as well as a mix of upper- and lower-case letters.
  • Keep your primary email address "clean" - When emailing to unknown parties, posting to newsgroups or chat rooms, or submitting your email address to any other public space or forum, we recommend using an alias or alternate email address.  That way, if your public email starts to receive too much SPAM, you can close it and start a new one.  By doing this, your primary email address is never affected and can still be used for communication between trusted colleagues, customers, family, and friends. 
  • Never reply to SPAM messages - SPAM is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages to recepients who would not normally request them.  The most commonly known form of SPAM is email SPAM.  If you are the recepient of one of these emails (which we are sure you have been more than a few times!), never respond to the email, and certainly never take the sender up on his offer.  If you respond or even acknowledge the email with a "Remove" or "Unsubscribe," you let the sender know that a real person checks that email address and you will suddenly find yourself on a host of other SPAM lists.
  • When shopping online, never submit your personal data or credit card information on unsecure connections (be sure the address begins with https://. . .).  Also, do a little research on the website you are shopping at on places like the Better Business Bureau or other consumer review sites to make sure the site is trustworthy.  Look for trusted seals (like Hacker Safe or VeriSign) on the website that lets you know the site has taken precautions to protect your personal data against hackers and other threats. 
  • Consider using a temporary or prepaid credit card for shopping online to help protect you.
  • Be wary of sites that offer you a prize or reward in return for your contact information.  This includes contests and sweepstakes sites as well.  More times than not, these sites are just gathering your information for direct marketing purposes and/or to sell your information to other companies for their direct marketing purposes.   
  • Most search engines collect and store records of your search queries.  If these records were ever revealed to third parties, it could be potentially embarrassing or dangerous.  Some ways to help protect your search privacy is to omit personally identifying information from your search terms, block "cookies" from your search engine, and keep from using your Internet Service Provider's (ISP) search engine which could link your account to your searches.
  • If you join social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace, learn how to use and adjust your Privacy settings to make sure your information is only seen by the intended audience.  Never "accept" or "follow" requests from people you do not know or trust.