How to protect home PC and personal browsing from outside spy/monitors/hackers?

Jbere is partially right. They CAN See everything your doing, but some companies have a disclaimer that allows them to do so if you connect to their servers. Legally they are covered. If i were you and you really are concerned about security, Drop McAfee (Because they such horribly) and get a better antivirus (I'd go either Avast if you want free or Zone Alarm if you want lock down security for a moderate price) If you're REALLY paranoid about hackers, don't use Wireless, use nothing but wired connections, it is a massive help.

You're logged into the office VPN, It's absolutely CERTAIN they have your IP address. That's part of what the VPN does. It's entirely possible for them to monitor everything you do while signed in to the VPN, but not a certainty. Definitely they will know what sites you visit through their VPN, but they should not be able to monitor your home PC itself. They have zero legal right to monitor your home PC unless they bought it for you for work purposes. If you think they've done it anyways, scan your system for rootkits and disable them. Your IP address is not generally enough for them to monitor your activities though, so they'd have to actually install software on your home computer in order to track what you're doing outside the VPN. Edit: They have the legal right to monitor whatever you do on their VPN. They have NO right, even with a disclaimer, to install spyware on your own home PC when you connect to their server. There is no way they can legally view what you are doing at home when you're not doing it through their VPN, not unless they provided the computer to you with the requirement that it be used only for work purposes. THAT is quite legal btw, and if they did they can install spyware and keyloggers quite legally.