Safe, safer, safest online practices

Do headlines like “Gaming console accounts hacked”, “Social media privacy questioned” and “Government website down after cyber-attack”, make you think twice before shopping online or sharing photos with friends?

As with any crime, cybercrime does not seem like a reality until you become a victim. At .eu, we want you to be safe when using online services, and would like to share our useful tips.

To reduce the chance of falling prey to cyber criminals, remember to:

• Be careful when sharing personal information online
• Change your passwords regularly
• Use the strongest privacy settings offered by social media websites
• Check your browser window for the “https” secure website indicator before entering credit card or bank details
• Never click on links in emails from people you don't know and watch out for links from people you do know. It is safer to open your browser and type in the URL manually.
• Make sure your computer’s antivirus software is up to date.

Terms every safe surfer should know:

• Hack: verb - Using a computer to gain unauthorised access to data.
• Keylogger: noun - Software that keeps track of (or logs) key-strokes from a keyboard, typically in a covert manner, so that the person using the keyboard is unaware that their actions are being monitored.
• Phishing: noun - The fraudulent practice of sending emails purporting to be from reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
• Spam: noun - Irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the Internet to a large number of newsgroups or users.
  verb - Sending the same message indiscriminately to large numbers of users or newsgroups on the Internet.
• Trojan: noun - Software that purports to perform a desirable function for the user prior to run or install, but (perhaps in addition to the expected function) steals information or harms the system. Derived from the Trojan Horse story in Greek mythology.
• Computer virus: A piece of code surreptitiously introduced into a system in order to corrupt it or destroy data.
• Worm: noun – A self-replicating computer program that uses a computer network to send copies of itself to other computers on the network, possibly even without user intervention.

Even if you think you are protected online, you can always do more to minimise risk and stay one step ahead. As the cliché goes, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.