Posted: 08th Feb, 2011 By: MarkJ

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.
Neelie Kroes, patron of Safer Internet Day and EU Digital Agenda Commissioner, said:
"Safer Internet Day is the annual highlight for the wide range of people and organisations who work hard to make the internet safer. Today, Safer Internet Centres, educators, parents, industry policy makers and children themselves all have the opportunity to review their achievements and identify challenges ahead.
For children and young people especially, it is both a celebration of the wonderful opportunities the online world offers, and a reminder that they need to be responsible citizens in the digital world. I am proud to support Safer Internet Day".
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.