Be smart - encrypt your traffic!

Wireless networks — even the WiFi connections in your home that come with the Internet service provider — can be a wide transmitter of whatever you are sending over the Web.

Be careful about online shopping over WiFi or sending personal information unless you've taken great care to encrypt your wireless network.

"It depends on how you set up your wireless connection — because with wireless, anyone wandering past your house can pick up the signal," Zulfikar Ramzan, senior principal researcher with the Symantec Security Response Team, said. "Use the encryption offered by the wireless provider or the router provider."

All of the major providers offer security features.

"A second, subtle thing to be aware of is it is very easy to connect to someone else's wireless router by accident and not know it," Ramzan added. He said some hackers will purposely set up wireless routers in frequently traveled places just to take advantage of this common mistake.

"Anyone can put any name on a wireless router provider," Ramzan said, and some of those could be hackers using the connection to collect information.

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