GetSafeOnline.org reveals in a recent study a striking contrast between the increased attention and caution people engage when installing internet security software on their personal computers and the lack of these when they engage in online activities where the risk of being exposed and taken advantage of is the greatest.

Although it seems that 88% of internet users have secured their PCs with some software protection, the rapid changes technology undergoes promise regularly new areas of danger.

In this respect, Cabinet Office Minister, Gillian Merron, addressed a week ago, at Get Safe Online’s annual Internet Safety Summit, the problem and importance of acknowledging a few protective measures in order for the Internet users to maintain online safety.

Social networking
According to Get Safe Online’s research, more than 10.8 million people in the UK are registered to a social networking site and one in four of these has made himself vulnerable to identity fraud by posting confidential or personal information such as phone number, address or email, on his online profile.

At the same time, another danger is represented by the trend of having your personal data posted online without your consent (13% of social networkers have done this according to the same study).

We get an useful warning from Tony Neate, managing director of GetSafeOnline.org, who says that the popularity of social networking increases greatly the risk of putting ourselves to jeopardy by becoming more and more open with our private lives online, failing to render the importance they deserve to some information (such as our birth date, our address etc.) that in the wrong hands can do us a lot of harm.

Wi-Fi
Another great potentiality of danger comes from the increasing popularity of wireless networks (Wi-Fi) which can be quite a resourceful terrain for online criminals. More than 7.8 million people across the UK have left their own internet access unprotected and open for anyone to use.

The risk of using Wi-Fi has been also addressed by Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) which emphasized the ‘subtleness’ of some fraudulent practices that go hand in hand with the somewhat ignorance of Wi-Fi users. Still, the same Tony Neate assures us that these problems can be efficiently prevented if some simple precautions are taken.

Started three years ago, the Get Safe Online campaign (www.getsafeonline.org) is the UK’s national internet security awareness campaign. It represents a multiparty program joining together the Government, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and private sector sponsors from the worlds of technology, retail and finance, and aims at educating, informing and raising awareness of internet security issues.