About 230 students were stunned by Jayne Hitchcock’s ways to protect themselves from cyberstalkers Monday night.

Hitchcock, an Internet crimes and security expert, is president and cofounder of Working to Halt Online Abuse, a volunteer group that helps people worldwide deal with online harrassers.

The organization often helps end cyber-harassment before police get involved, she said.

“Anyone can be a victim,” Hitchcock said. “There are no physical boundaries to this form of harassment.”

WHOA defines harassment as more than one incident which is harassing in nature, Hitchcock said.

There are no typical victims, though the majority are Caucasian, she said. Hitchcock said the number of minority victims stalked online is rising.

Most victims are females 18 to 30 years old, she said.

“Most cases begin with e-mails. They are not romances gone sour,” Hitchcock said.

There are also no typical harrassers. The number of female harrassers is increasing while the number of male harrassers is decreasing. Most are not computer experts, and are white-collar workers without a criminal record, he said.

“They are clever but not smart,” Hitchcock said.

Hitchcock said people “ego-surf” by going to a search engine and typing their name in quotes. Search results will show how much information about the searcher is available through the Internet.

“If you are in the phone book, you are online somewhere,” Hitchcock said.

Hitchcock said to avoid posting profiles, change preferences rather than relying on default setups of programs, update antivirus software weekly and install firewall software.