hree Spanish men with 'limited' hacking experience are believed to be behind the vast Mariposa botnet  Photo: CLARE KENDALL

1) Make sure you are running antivirus software on your computer, and that you have installed the latest virus updates. There are some excellent free antivirus programs available – we recommend Avast! or AVG.

2) Make sure you've got a Firewall installed on your computer to monitor the flow of internet connections in to and out of your machine. We recommend Zone Alarm, which is free.
 
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3) Download and install any critical updates and security patches from your operating system vendor. You can find all the latest bug fixes and patches for the Windows operating system on the Microsoft website.

4) If you're using a Wi-Fi network at home, ensure it is password protected and secure, to prevent other people from being able to piggyback off your connection, or worse, hack into your network and access files and information stored on your computer.