With a mixture of common sense and knowledge of the risks, you’ll be able to avoid most types of cybercrime.
Shred or make illegible any paperwork that contains personal details before you throw it away or recycle it. Criminals can go through your bins to get receipts, letters from banks and other sensitive information that they can
- Treat all unsolicited emails (especially if you don’t know the sender) with caution and never click on links in these emails to visit unknown web sites - these could contain links to code that could affect your computer.
- Don’t open attachments in emails that you’re not expecting – they could contain a virus or code that would allow someone to control your computer.
- Don’t share files or programs with other users.
- Don’t use free software unless you know it’s reputable and safe.
- Install anti-virus software, keep it up to date and run regular security scans.
- Install the latest security updates for your computer software, also known as patches.
- Install and learn how to use a personal firewall.
- Be careful not to share personal information such as address information, bank details, telephone numbers, date of birth etc on social networking sites and other websites that don’t use encryption to secure the information you publish.
- Don’t use the same password on different websites. Although this makes it more difficult to manage your online accounts it’s worth the effort. You can use password management software and encryption to make this easier.
Shred or make illegible any paperwork that contains personal details before you throw it away or recycle it. Criminals can go through your bins to get receipts, letters from banks and other sensitive information that they can