More than ever, perhaps, this year’s Computer Security Day will have resonance for many people. In 2016, the first tentative overview of the scale of cybercrime in England and Wales discovered there were nearly four million incidents in the past year, involving computer viruses, hacking, and online fraud.
Around 1.4 million involved the use of computer viruses, and around 600,000 incidents related to unauthorised access to personal information including hacking.
So here are five things you can do today to limit your chances of being a victim.
Passwords should be strong, complex and as far as possible from being guessable by either a human or a millions-of-combinations-per-second number crunching computer.
Because computer security isn’t just about hackers and malware – it’s about securing your system from risks including fire, floods or a simple mistake when the wrong button is pressed!
This can be very often the first or last line of defence for any computer. On a daily basis, your computer is attacked by Trojans, worms, and other nasty malware aimed at hacking your system. There’s a lot of boasting to be the “best anti-virus” on the market – here’s what we thought five years ago. The product has evolved with technology – and it’s still the one of the best around.
Always a difficult one to explain – but essentially don’t let parts of your system (like your printer) talk to bits it doesn’t need to (like the internet). Better explained with the help of a few 1990s tunes in this recent blog.
Mistakes happen. But with effective training and education of staff using your IT systems, you can and will limit the threat. There’s more about that in this article
Don’t forget – we are here to support you with all of the above. It’s what we do every day.
