Get Safe Online brings out 'Rough Guide to Internet Safety'
According to Verisign, 19 people in the UK fall for some scam or get suckered by a piece of malware every minute. Cybercrime is costing the UK an average of £474 million a year - most of which its victims will not be able to recover.
The summit was crammed with facts and stats about cybercrime, fraud and the battle against it. But what I'm thinking will stick in the minds of most was the 'almost live' video demo by the engaging Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro. Blue Peter style with a trojan he'd 'already prepared', he demonstrated how a downloaded app could send a premium rate text (at something like £6 a pop) every minute from your phone, and you'd be none the wiser until the bill hit you. Ouch.
Mobile malware is (not suprisingly) on the up. But you can help to protect yourself, and Get Safe Online and its partner organisations are doing what they can to help us ...
Learn: This week Get Safe Online brings you The Rough Guide to Staying Safe On Line: a genuinely useful, informative pdf, designed to be updated regularly. It strikes the right balance and manages to to readable and comprehensible without being redundant or patronising. In my view it should be standard issue in every household in the UK.
Report: There is a single point of contact for all reports: the Action Fraud line (http://www.actionfraud.org.uk/). The benefits to having all reports chanelled through a single organisation are obvious: the data collected is fed through into the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), who can then analyse it and take action. By reporting scams and malware through the Action Fraid, you can actually help stop cybercrime spreading.
Two easy take outs from Internet Safety Week then. Protect yourself (and spread the word amongst family and friends - you could even hold a seminar at work or a meeting in your child's school, why not?). And if you do spot a scam, help stop it by reporting it through.
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