Today Is The 12th Safer Internet Day (sid).

[Conniff]

Is this the first time you’ve heard about SID? No worries. The video below will brief you on what it’s all about, focusing on this year’s theme“Play Your Part for a Better Internet”.

 

 

 

More Than an Invitation, It’s a Challenge

 

In 2015, Insafe, the organization behind the SID global campaign, came up with the slogan “Let’s Create a Better Internet Together”. Although the current and previous themes are essentially not that different, the former’s tone and scope have indeed changed from merely inviting, which anyone can easily turn down, to challenging and reminding Internet users that they can make a difference, no matter how small the effort.

 

We think it is the perfect message that can drive one to respond with greater seriousness and vigilance in taking care of not just what we say online but how we, as privacy- and security- conscious citizens of the Web, should generally respond to the growing sophistication and prevalence of digital threats like exploits and ransomware against businesses and consumers of all ages.

 

 

 

 

Threats in the UK: A Brief Review

 

To help further foster this call for UK citizens to get involved in creating a better and safer online experience, let us refresh ourselves with a four-point list of worrying security findings from previous months that hit the news:

 

 

 

•A report in mid-2015, our friends at Symantec named the United Kingdom as the most targeted and cyber-attacked nation in the whole of Europe, with a third of them targeting small- to medium-sized businesses.

 

•The National Crime Agency (NCA) revealed that the UK lost £16 billion to cybercrime and cyber-enabled crimes. One of the main concerns of the organization is the rise of mobile malware due to the increasing number of apps being used for financial transactions. A rife market of users depending on the Internet to procure of goods and services online also proved to be attractive to online criminals.

 

•Speaking of mobile, Ponemon surveyed hundreds of individuals in the UK and reported that majority of Brits would prefer losing their wallets than their smartphones—not because of the value of their device but what is found in it. In fact, they have assessed the data in their smartphones would cost around £6.5 thousand. Although they put great value and importance to their devices, 47 percent of those surveyed don’t think that having data protection features on phones are needed.

 

•In November alone of 2015, the UK was attacked by 1,200 types of malware families. Topping the count were variants from the Kelihos Trojan, the Necurs backdoor, the Bedep Trojan, and the Conficker worm.

 

To add more to the above, our telemetry data has showed that in last 12 months, a total of 154.5M malicious files and 138.2M potentially unwanted program (PUP) have been detected from machines based in the UK.

 

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Edited February 9, 2016 by Conniff

[Conniff]

•A report in mid-2015, our friends at Symantec named the United Kingdom as the most targeted and cyber-attacked nation in the whole of Europe, with a third of them targeting small- to medium-sized businesses.

 

Could that be good news in that the UK is worth targeting as it is the richest or, obversely, could it be that the people in the UK are more stupid than the rest of Europe and so easy targets.

[citizenB]

This was on the BBC news earlier on.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/safer-internet-day-more-than-three-quarters-of-under-13s-using-social-networks-like-facebook-and-a6862346.html

 

I found it very interesting that children under 13 are not supposed to be able to access these.

 

 

More than three quarters of British children aged between 10 and 12 are ignoring age limits to set up their own social media accounts, putting them at risk of online bullying and abuse, a survey has found.

 

In research to mark Safer Internet Day, the BBC’s Newsround programme revealed that Facebook was most widely used by under-13s, followed by Instagram.

 

Out of around 1,000 children and teenagers between 10 and 18 interviewed, more than one in five said they had been bullied online but still found social media to be an important part of everyday life.

 

Presumably parents of these children will then start screaming that there should be more control if their youngsters are either bullied or groomed ??

[Conniff]

I think that is a silly rule, how is it ever going to be policed. Any one of any age can sign up to any type of site they wish just by saying 'yes' to are you over 13.