When Graeme Frost received an e-mail notice that an expensive digital camera had been charged to his credit card account, he immediately clicked on the Internet link included in the message that said it would allow him to dispute the charge. As the 29-year-old resident of southwestern England scoured the resulting Web page for the merchant’s phone number, the site silently installed a password-stealing program that transmitted all of his personal and financial information.

Beware the keylogger. I checked out CounterSpy by Sunbelt Software (company mentioned in the article) and it scored highly on head-to-head tests with others.

Now you just might think, Windows XP has a firewall, why don’t I just use that? Good idea but you need more oomph. The firewall built into Windows XP could be called ‘firewall lite’. It’s pretty bare bones. For instance, it does not block outgoing traffic! In other words, it allows your confidential information straight out to the Internet (you get what you pay for).

I think I could use their Kerio Personal Firewall product.