Safe wireless surfing

Security experts offer these tips when using wireless Internet access:
-- Use a suite of security software, including a firewall, like those available from McAfee, Symantec and Trend Micro. Make sure your software is up to date. Some companies, such as Webroot of Boulder, Colo., offer free scans of your system from their Web sites.

-- When logging on in a cafe or hotel, make sure you find out from an employee what the name of the network is, so you don't fall for a phony network set up by a hacker.

-- Change the password when you set up your router at home.
-- Try using OpenDNS, a free service at www.opendns.com, which will change the router's settings and, among other things, prevent pharming attacks (in which you think you're entering data at, say, your bank's Web site, but really you're at a fake site).

-- When on a secure financial site, make sure the address bar reads https (the "s" at the end stands for "secure") and that a picture of a lock shows up next to the address.

-- To get particularly tricky, when setting up your laptop, Robert Graham of Atlanta's Errata Security suggests giving yourself a gender-bending sign-in. If your name is Bob, make your sign-in Mary. Most hackers wouldn't suspect people of lying to their own computer, and it will throw them off the trail of your data.

-- If you get confused, call tech support for the router or the security software. You can also pay for a service like Best Buy's Geek Squad to fix the problem.