Because Internet identity theft continues to be a worldwide problem, the sanctuary of safe online surfing may seem like a distant dream.

Every day brings either a new identity theft threat or a new and more creative version of an old scam. Thieves have good reason to be more creative — technology is getting better at stopping scams, law enforcement is better at identifying culprits, and consumers (at least some of them) are becoming more aware and taking steps to prevent identity theft.

But another reason thieves are becoming more creative is because there’s a lot of money at stake. More consumers, more high-speed Internet connections, more credit cards and more online stores means lots more business opportunities.

Security experts that track hackers and identity thieves regularly report online stashes containing credit card information worth millions — information that’s being offered for sale on the hacker black market. Ask yourself this…what would happen if your personal information somehow ended up in one of those stashes?

It’s no wonder we don’t seem to be making much headway on many security fronts. The number of identity theft victims annually seems to have leveled off lately and may even be falling. That could be because victims are not coming forward as much because their credit card companies or banks have reimbursed them fully for any losses, and they therefore don’t see themselves as victims. But someone’s paying for all that zero-liability — and it’s usually folks like you and me.

But while the battle rages on, there are still plenty of things you can do to help prevent Internet identity theft.

One of the most important identity theft protection steps you can take is to keep up-to-date with patching your browser. Patches are essentially repairs to fix recently discovered vulnerabilities. Hackers and identity thieves are very quick to develop and deploy tricks to exploit these vulnerabilities, and if you visit an infected web site with a vulnerable browser, these sites can infect your computer with everything from bots and Trojans to password-stealing keyloggers and spyware.

All good browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, make it easy to have your browser automatically check for and install any new patches.

Bogus and pharming web sites are also on the rise, and many of them simply take advantage of busy users who mistype a URL into their browser.

Hackers are known to register thousands of domains with similar spellings to popular web sites, and users who accidentally mistype a URL may end up on a password-stealing web site that looks identical to their bank web site. Once they reach the bogus site, users are just a few keystrokes away from falling victim to identity theft and fraud.

And whether you surf from home, from work or from your favorite coffee shop, make sure you keep any personal or sensitive information on your computer to a minimum.

There are so many ways thieves can access your hard drive, the best identity theft protection is to have as little valuable information as possible on your computer. So don’t risk exposing your personal information unnecessarily.