Today is officially Safer Internet Day 2011 (SID), which aims to help educate web surfers and children about the dangers of Internet use and how to stay safe while online. Plenty of ISPs and other organisations around the country will be supporting today's event.

This years the event, which is also held in almost 70 other countries around the world, focuses on the "digital lives" theme and encourages people to think about their online identity.


It's also a good time to remind people about the need to enable Wi-Fi security on their wireless networks at home (e.g. WPA2 encryption is recommended) and to keep their computers updated with the latest patches. Computer users also need anti-virus software, such as the free version of AVG or Microsoft Security Essentials.

Firewalls are another highly advisable security feature, although most operating system software and hardware routers now come with a basic one enabled by default. Finally, passwords need to be a strong mix of different characters and not easy to guess names, dates or words.