We’ve all heard horror stories about people having their bank accounts cleared out or their identies stolen, so we should all take some simple precautions to prevent us from being easy targets on line.

Check out Girl Geek’s top ten list to staying safe on line:

1. Strong Passwords

• Use different passwords for all the accounts you may have, this makes a hacker’s job much more difficult.
• Use strong passwords so this means a combination of letters, numbers and common symbols, generally more than 7 letters long.

2. Suspicious emails

• Phishing is a technique where you get a fake email which appears to be from a site you may use regularly. The email may ask you to update details and click a link to do so where they can then harvest your details.
• If you get an email that seems dodgey, don’t do what it is requesting!

3. Keep your wits about you

• If you get, for example, an email from a man offering you hundereds of thousands of pounds and you don’t even know him then yes, this is obviuolsy too good to be true and a con.
• It’s a scam, if you get one, delete it.

4. Secure your wireless network

• Do not leave your wireless network at home un-secure as your network can be hacked and your broadband connection can be used by other people.
• Use some form of wireless encryption (WPA or WPA2), use a strong adminstrator password and ensure only known computers can connect to your network.

5. Shop at secure sites

• Make sure there is a closed padlock in the status bar at the bottom of the screen.
• Make sure there is https:// in the address ba

6. Firewall

• A firewall is a piece of software which makes your computer invisible to hackers searching for soft targets to hack.
• Use a quality firewall to stop hackers cracking your computer’s security easily.

7. Anti-virus / Anti-spyware software

• Install a good quality anti virus software on your computer.
• Keep it up to date as new viruses are being released all the time.
• Install anti-spyware software such as Microsoft Defender

8. Take care when downloading

• Make sure you trust the site you are downloading from.
• Some disreputable sites may attach spyware to another innocent package you are downloading which can send information from your computer back to criminals, be careful of this.

9. Be responsible

• Don’t think “oh, it will never happen to me” and not bother taking precautions.
• Security is your responsibility.

10. Keep sensitive data private

• Be aware not to give too much personal information away on line
• Social networking sites are accessible by everyone so do not add loads of personal details including date of birth as this gives people access to your identity.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 5th, 2008 at 6:45 pm and is filed under Blog, Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.