The Get Safe Online campaign has kindly reminded us that this week (16th - 20th November) is officially Get Safe Online Week 2009. To coincide with this the campaign has released its latest annual report (GOS Report 2009 - .PDF), which found that just 14% feel at risk from Internet crime in their daily lives. However 56% of those surveyed said that they or their close friends, family or colleagues have been the victim of some kind of online crime.

The study also found that 34% have been hit by a computer virus, 22% have experienced a phishing attack, 21% have been a victim of online identity theft, 15% still open email attachments from unknown sources, 10% have had their computer hacked, 8% have suffered online harassment/bullying and 7% have had their social networking page hacked (note: 12% do not use privacy settings on social networking sites).

Interestingly, the main reason for not installing computer security measures in 2008 was found to be a lack of knowledge of what these measures are (19%), which has since reduced to only 7%. The most popular online activities are shown below.


The campaign advises Internet users to install anti-virus, anti-spam tools, anti-spyware and firewall software on their computers. The computer software itself should also be kept up to date and it is important to make both regular backups and encrypt your wireless connection if you use one - Full Beginners Guide.

There's also a useful 10 Question Online Safety Test that anybody can take, which attempts to test just how knowledgeable you are about online security. I'm loathed to say I only got 9 out of 10 after picking an answer on the wireless security question before reading all of the options first :tongue: .