How to Boost your Cyber Security in 2015

After another year punctuated by cyber security scares like CryptLocker, HeartBleed and the Apple ‘goto fail’ bug, people are being urged to update their cyber security according to the latest best practice.

Hugh Boyes, a cyber security expert at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), has drafted five top tips for combating and deterring cyber crime.

“With increasing threats to systems and new vulnerabilities emerging daily, we need to raise awareness of the need to improve the cyber security of all the technology we use,” says Boyes.

Hugh’s top five tips:

1. Do not use an account with administrative privileges for normal day-to-day activities and web browsing: accounts with lower privileges warn you if a programme tries to install software or modify computer settings thus allowing you to decide whether the proposed action is safe.
2. Ensure that your operating system and application software is up to date: many of the patches issued are to patch security vulnerabilities, the quicker these are patched the lower the risk that your computer can be compromised through known vulnerabilities where fixes are available. This should include up-to-date anti-malware software.
3. Take care when downloading and installing software: if it is free or is not from a well-recognised and trustworthy brand there is a risk that the software may include features that spy on you (the user), enable unsolicited advertising or install harmful software on your computer.
4. Treat with caution unsolicited emails containing attachments or hyperlinks (particularly shortened links): many phishing attacks attempt to trick you into opening a file loaded with malware or to visit a site which runs malicious scripts on your computer
5. Apply common sense (due diligence): if an email offer looks too good to be true, the prices on a website are abnormally low or you receive an unsolicited  telephone call offering computer support (eg, from someone claiming to be from Microsoft), then it is likely that you are the target for a scam.

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