Staying safe online (now closed)

Student Money Week 2017

Worried about staying safe online? Ask the experts about internet safety.

Advisors for this Q&A

Tony Neate, Chief Executive Officer at Get Safe Online

Tony is Chief Executive Officer of Get Safe Online – the UK’s leading source of unbiased, authoritative and easy-to-understand information on protection against fraud, identity theft, viruses and other online problems.

Rob Hadfield, Director of Secure Kangaroo Ltd

Rob is an expert on information security awareness with over 10 years experience. He is owner and Director at Secure Kangaroo Ltd, and provides consultancy services in information security specialising in employee awareness.

Laura Beaumont, Member of Get Safe Online's Press Team

Laura is a member of the Get Safe Online Press Team, responsible for public relations and media outreach.

Reply 1

colourful lamb

2

What are your top tips for staying safe online? Anything that comes up time and time again?

Many Thanks

Reply 2

Laura Beaumont

Original post by benthelamb

What are your top tips for staying safe online? Anything that comes up time and time again?

Many Thanks

Hi Ben,

Our top tips for online safety can be found on our web page here: https://www.getsafeonline.org/get-safe-top-10/

Thanks

Reply 3

Laura Beaumont

Get Safe Online team here,

We'll be around for the next hour answering all your online safety questions.

Thanks!

Reply 4

Sazzy890

18

Hi guys, what's the best way to choose a strong password and help remember it for someone who doesn't have a great memory! :colondollar:

For newbies, one thing you mention is about securing your wireless network - how do you go about doing this?

Reply 6

iloverockandroll

1

I kind of disagree with #9 here: https://www.getsafeonline.org/get-safe-top-10/

Often you hear of people downloading the latest updates, only for them to be full of bugs and them then having to be patched. Should this be taken with a pinch of salt, i.e. wait a little while first?

Reply 7

Laura Beaumont

Original post by Sazzy890

Hi guys, what's the best way to choose a strong password and help remember it for someone who doesn't have a great memory! :colondollar:

Hi there,

I’m glad you asked this question as passwords are so important, but often thought of as an inconvenience! Always use a different password for every online account. If you have only use one password, a criminal will have access to everything which is a pretty scary thought.

I know it’s easy for me to sit here and say you need different passwords for everything, but when the average person now has a massive 19 different online accounts I do appreciate that it’s not an easy task remembering them all! Especially if they’re strong passwords that use upper and lower case characters, numbers etc.

There are two options: you could use a password manager – but ONLY from a reputable source like Norton Identity Safe. Or, if you must write passwords down in order to remember them, make sure they are meaningless to, and unusable by other people by writing them in code (substituting the characters in your password with others that you can remember, or easily work out).

Find more info on creating a strong password
site https://www.getsafeonline.org/shopping-banking/passwords/

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 8

Laura Beaumont

Original post by iloverockandroll

I kind of disagree with #9 here: https://www.getsafeonline.org/get-safe-top-10/

Often you hear of people downloading the latest updates, only for them to be full of bugs and them then having to be patched. Should this be taken with a pinch of salt, i.e. wait a little while first?

It's a very good point but normally a patch is due to vulnerabilities being found in the software and the updating fixes those issues.If you don't patch them and those vulnerabilities become known, hackers can write exploits to compromise your machine and you can potentially become more vulnerable. On certain applications, it can cause a problem but probably nowhere near as big as the problem that can occur as a result of vulnerabilities being exploited. If you wish to wait a while, then that can happen. This has been seen specifically in Apple iPhone products where small issues can arise when updates are made.

Reply 9

Laura Beaumont

Original post by CJ

For newbies, one thing you mention is about securing your wireless network - how do you go about doing this?

Hi there, most wireless networks now come with a default password but that password is now normally unique to the wireless router. If the default password is a simple one, such as '1232' or '000', we strongly recommend changing it. This can be done by looking at the user manual which, if you haven't got it, you will find by searching the name and model of your wireless router online. This should give you simple steps on how to change your password.

For more information on passwords, take a look at our website: https://www.getsafeonline.org/shopping-banking/passwords/