For one to understand the world of credit card fraud they will need to learn a new language. Such words as "shoulder surfing", phishing" and "skimming" may sound less criminal the "stealing", but they are, in fact, ways in which money can be stolen off your credit card.

While there are no official reports on the number of credit card fraud cases and credit card companies keeping their lips tightly sealed. an FBI report in 2005 indicted that credit cards represented majority of the total $315 billion in U.S financial fraud loss for that year alone.

So now with that frighting statistic how can one protect themselves from this happening to them. You may be surprised simple actions done each day and small equipment upgrades are all the answers you really need.

Password Issues

When surfing the net you know those automatic pop ups that ask you would you like us to remember your password for next time. Do not tick it! Most passwords are stored in a special file on windows systems and every hacker knows where that is. Without using a firewall this file is easy to snatch up and then freely decrypted to gain your information with programs easily found online.

You know that old say safety in numbers? Well try safety in numbers and letters. Its a good idea to make everything available to you part of your password such as upper case, lowercase, numbers and even punctuation marks can be used in many cases. Update your passwords each month to a new password and try your very best not to use the same password for everything you do and every account you have.

Firewalls

Firewalls play a major part in your protection. While there are both software and hardware versions you will be happy to know windows XP and Visita come with a software based firewall. However many people deactivate this firewall not knowing what its doing or just by pass it after warnings are issued. A better way of going about it is getting a router with a firewall inside of it. A dedicated hardware firewall will always outbeat any software based one.

Beware of phishing scams

Phishing is a way for people to fool others into giving out their information. An example of this is say you go to login to your account for your bank. But you type a letter in wrong and are taken to a web site that looks exactly the same as if you would have gone to the real web site. You enter your information and click on submit... Nothing happens... You start to get fired up wondering what is taking this thing so long and EK you just got fool into sending your login information to someone else with a replicated web site.

Secure Connection

When ordering online look at the bottom of your browser. There should be some form of lock image that is either in the lock position or unlocked. If its unlocked you are transmitting information on that site though a no secure connection. Also adding this in here be sure to check your accounts often. The sooner you find something is up and report it the better chance you have to creating less damage and catching the person in the act.

Be Smart and Be Safe go have fun on the net that's that its here for!