It really isn’t too difficult to protect yourself from cyber criminals if the first asset you bring into play is your common sense. A lot of the time people who fall victim to crime committed via the Internet have simply not taken adequate precautions or behaved the way that they normally would in every day life. Sometimes it seems as if caution is thrown to the wind when we get on the computer, whereas in reality we should take additional precautions as it is very easy for would-be criminals to hide from you online.

One of the first things that you should do to protect yourself from cyber criminals is to exercise care in storing your information. Ensure that you use the latest in firewall technology to protect people from accessing parts of your computer where personal data may be stored. It rather goes without saying that you should never give out your password to anybody, under any circumstances.

Some people choose passwords that represent easily identifiable words or names. For example, they may use the name of their pet cat. To be really effective a password should contain a random assortment of letters and numbers – but make sure that you don’t forget it yourself until you have committed it to memory!

When opening and checking e-mail try and make sure that you know who the sender is. Any e-mail that asks you for confidential information should be ignored. There are a number of common scams where cyber criminals pretend to represent well-known bodies, such as a government portal or a popular online payment processor. These organizations do not send you e-mails out of the blue asking you for your personal information, ID numbers or passwords, so bear that in mind.

When you are making online purchases make sure that you only do so through secure means. You should check the up-to-date security procedures carried by the payment provider and look for the “https” designation in your web browser at the top of the page. This signifies a very secure and encrypted interface. Others will not be able to see your credit card details or use the data for their own use.

Whatever you do, don’t be fooled by those e-mails telling you that you have won something and that you must send some information to the sender in order to “process” your winnings. You would be surprised how many people do fall for this approach.

When it comes to your children, make sure that they cannot fall victim to sexual predators by having unrestrained access to the Internet. There are plenty of tools and procedures out there enabling adequate parental control these days.

What precautions have you got in place to protect yourself from cyber criminals? Have you been a victim of cyber crime?

Adam Toren