Keeping the Internet’s bogeymen out!

Guest post from Simon Ellson.

The Internet is full of tricks and treats. It provides us with endless entertainment and opportunities to connect with one another, but it does also put us and our family in potential risk, 24 hours a day.

The recent Norton Cybercrime Report showed that online scams is amongst the top three types of cybercrime – even web-savvy adults fall for them! With little education, however, we can all learn methods to avoid such problems and stay safe.

But what about the children? How do we ensure that our kids stay safe online, without us peering over the shoulders? The same answer – education!

Whilst teaching kids to limit the information that they share with others and how to appropriately use security and privacy settings helps them to stay safe online, kids need to taught how to keep the door closed for the Internet’s bogeymen.

And how do we do this? Similar to how we teach our children the rules of trick-or-treating e.g. staying on the pavement, crossing the street carefully, avoiding unwrapped or homemade treats and coming home before it’s too late. We can teach children the internet’s equivalents:

1. Be careful about what they  click on – stick to well-known Internet sites and use search ratings tools like Norton Safe Web to avoid going to dangerous website

2. Teach your child never to respond to spam and to delete unwanted messages – Marian Merritt, Norton’s internet safety advocate, mentioned in a recent blog post that some of the most common scams that trick children are pop-up ads that:

  • Promise you can easily win great prizes like a tablet or gaming system
  • Claim to detect viruses on your computer and offer to clean them
  • Offer to speed up your computer

3.  Use security software on all computers as well as mobile phones and tablets.

4. Set up unique and complex passwords and ensure that your children share them with you but no one else.

5. Talk to your child about Internet scams, misleading advertising, spam Instant Message or social network friend requests, and other online tricks you know to avoid but they may not.

October 28, 2011 | Filed Under Family Online Safety, Identity theft, Norton Cybercrime Report, Security, Spam | Leave a Comment 

5 steps to protect yourself from ID fraud

Guest post from Simon Ellson.

This week is National ID Fraud Prevention Week, which got me thinking about an experience that I had on a recent holiday in Greece.

Whilst I was there I booked a sight-seeing boat trip with the Holiday Rep.  We were staying on a remote Greek island and so I wasn’t surprised that the Rep didn’t have a chip and PIN reader when she took  my payment. However, it did surprise me that she didn’t have one of those old-fashioned card swiping machines, the ones with the multi-sheeted carbon paper.  Instead she placed my credit card under the carbon paper sheets and rubbed over the credit card with the edge of a pen, brass-rubbing style – how very hi-tech!

It made me smile and in my relaxed holiday frame-of-mind I didn’t really consider how insecure this was or how easy it would be for my card details and signature to be captured.  Luckily, the Rep was totally trustworthy and my ID hasn’t been misused.

However, this isn’t the case for everyone. Research issued by Action Fraud has found that although 95% of the UK population is aware of the threat and risks of identity fraud, the number of victims is still rising. People continue to be careless with their identities and the average cost of these incidents to each victim is £1,190.  National ID Fraud Prevention Week is another reminder for us all to protect our offline and online identities.

Simple actions can help to keep you and your family secure:

  • Don’t share your personal details with others
  • Use a private computer when  shopping online
  • Ensure that the website you’re using is secure (this is indicated by the padlock  and the “https://” before the URL)
  • Use smart passwords (to find out what makes a smart password, take a look at this blog  by Symantec)
  • And of course, always use an up-to-date internet security package.

The Stop ID Fraud website, prepared especially for this week, has a resource centre where you can download useful tips and advice on how to protect your  identity.  You can also use the Norton downloads, to keep your online stuff safe and protect your family and your possessions.

October 19, 2011 | Filed Under Identity theft, Security | Leave a Comment