  The presence of scalar fields with color and electric charge in
supersymmetric theories makes feasible the existence of dangerous charge and
color breaking (CCB) minima and unbounded from below directions (UFB) in the
effective potential, which would make the standard vacuum unstable. The
avoidance of these occurrences imposes severe constraints on the supersymmetric
parameter space. We give here a comprehensive and updated account of this
topic.
