- The internet provides a wealth of information, data transfer and communication opportunities. Given this, it's important to make sure your online activity is as safe and secure as possible. So how can you make sure that your online activity is safe and secure? A good place to start is to consider how to secure your IP address. Your IP address is assigned to you by your internet service provider, or ISP, and enables you to access the internet at home, work, or even when traveling. It's your road to the internet with your traffic going out, but it can also be a gateway for undesired traffic coming into you. Often, your IP address is exposed, meaning that anyone can see it. As it's looped to your computing location, they can also find out not only what you're doing online, but also potentially where you are. This A, allows online businesses to monitor your internet activity, B, makes it easy for your location to be tracked, and C, leaves you vulnerable to hackers who could potentially use your IP address to take over your device. These risks have been around for some time, and this has led to technologies being developed to make your internet activity more secure. HTTPS, which stands for hypertext transfer protocol secure, is one way that can help secure your connection to the internet. HTTPS is a set of rules that dictates how parts of a network interact and transfers the code that makes up websites from web servers hosting them back to your device. It encrypts the data which is shared between your device and the wider internet, making it more secure. With the use of HTTPS becoming a security protocol standard across the internet, the question arising is is it enough, and should you go further in protecting yourself online? A popular method is to set up a virtual private network, or VPN. Normally, when you access the internet, you pull a request to access a website from the internet, through your ISP. However, a VPN hides your internet connection by first, sending an encrypted request to your ISP, which is then passed to a private server. The VPN then sends you the requested information back. This way, your online activity is between you and the websites you visit. Your connections cannot be linked to your computer or to you. In the business world, VPNs enable organizations to securely transfer data communications between different work sites. This way, you can remotely log in to an office server. This will, for example, enable you to access the business's servers if you find yourself working remotely from home or from a client's site. As the VPN encrypts information end to end, the remote employee can safely and securely access this data, and the VPN remains a stable connection, meaning that they don't have to log in every time they need a new file. There are a few different ways you can access a VPN. You can one, purchase a subscription to a commercially available VPN, two, use a VPN set up by your own business or company, or three, create your own simple VPN, using the point-to-point tunneling protocol, PPTP. VPNs can add an additional layer of security for you and your business.