Our look at computer viruses and other online nasties in the April Westnet Newsletter sparked an encouraging response from Members keen to know more about internet safety and the steps they can take to protect themselves online.

As luck would have it, this weekend marks the beginning of National Cyber Security Awareness Week 2010 – a Federal Government initiative encouraging all internet users to show the necessary care while online.

The Week brings together government agencies, industry, and community and consumer organizations in an effort to increase online safety.  Events and information sessions in metropolitan, regional and rural communities across Australia emphasize online risks to personal and financial information and provide details on the steps we can take to stay out of harm’s way.

National Cyber Security Awareness Week 2010 promotes six easy steps you can take for better online security:

1. Install security software and update it regularly.

Helps prevent infections from a range of nasty sources, often spread through bogus downloads or emails.

2. Turn on automatic updates so all your software receives the latest fixes.

This will prevent your software becoming outdated and help detect the latest threats.

3. Get a stronger password and change it at least twice a year.

Strong passwords are usually more that eight characters in length, a mixture of upper and lower case, with at least one number.

4. Stop and think before you click on links or attachments.

Make sure links and attachments are to/from trusted sources; or err on the side of caution.

5. Stop and think before you share any personal or financial information about yourself or your friends and family.

Is it the kind of information you’d want in the hands of scammers?

6. Know what your children are doing online.

Make sure they know to stay safe and encourage them to report anything suspicious.

Following these simple steps – and showing a reasonable amount of common sense – will help guard your computer against nasty viruses and keep your personal information out of reach from online scammers.

Heaps more information on National Cyber Security Awareness Week 2010 (and online security in general) is available at www.staysmartonline.gov.au. You can even sign on to the Stay Smart Online Alert Service for up to date advice in plain speaking language, and details of the very latest e-security threats.

Posted by josh.nicholson

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Educational. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.