Help your friends and family stay safe online

I’m proud to be part of Get Safe Online, Britain’s leading source of unbiased, factual and easy-to-understand information on online safety. Tomorrow marks the start of Get Safe Online Week 2012. Get Safe Online is asking everyone to pass on online safety tips to
friends, family, colleagues, neighbours or even strangers who you think may
benefit from the advice. In short: Click and Tell!

Here’s my piece of advice. Don’t click on links in Facebook or Twitter messages that say things like ‘What are you doing in this?’ or ‘Who took this photo of me in my bathroom?’. Another one to watch out for is ‘I can’t believe what they said about you in this blog’. Ignore them even (especially) if it comes from a friend, as they’ll probably have had their Facebook or Twitter account taken over by nasty people.

These messages are clever: the senders know that people will be anxious to see photos of them or to learn what others have said about them. If you get one claiming to be from a friend, don’t click – instead give your friend a call. Chances are they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about as they won’t have sent the message. (It will have been send by someone who’s taken over their account.)

You’ll find a huge amount of helpful advice about staying safe online on Get Safe Online’s website. And if you’re in Cardiff, London, Leeds, Edinburgh and Belfast, watch out for Get Safe Online’s roadshow this week.