Across the world, incidents of cybercrime are on the rise.

Last year in Australia, the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) received over 67,000 reports of cybercrime – an increase of nearly 13 per cent from the year before. This equates to one report of cybercrime every 8 minutes.

Many people may not be aware of the risks we face in cyberspace. But the good news is that you can take simple steps to protect your personal and financial information online.

Just as you take steps to safeguard your physical belongings, such as locking your doors, by taking the same care of your devices and accounts when engaging online, you can protect yourself and your valuable online information.

Follow these tips to be more cyber secure:

  • Use multi-factor authentication for all personal online activities, such as email, banking and social media accounts
  • Create long and unique passphrases for your accounts – the strongest passphrases have at least 14 characters using four or more random words
  • Update your software regularly or set it to auto-update
  • Be careful about what information you send or receive while connected to public Wi-Fi, as it’s possible for others to see what you are doing
  • Think before posting about yourself and others online
  • Be wary of clicking on links or downloading anything that you’re not expecting – links in email, tweets, texts, posts, social media messages and online advertising are the easiest way for cyber criminals to get your sensitive information.

Also, by regularly backing up the data on your personal computer, phone or tablet to the cloud or to external hard drives, you will protect yourself from data loss in the event of hardware failures, breakage, theft or other forms of cybercrime.

Being cybersafe is everyone’s responsibility. As the world becomes increasingly digital, it’s important that you know what you can do to protect your own cybersecurity.

You can find out more about how to protect your personal cyber security including information specifically for seniors, as well as subscribe to alerts and advice at cyber.gov.au