It’s probably fair to say that the majority of people no longer fear the internet. For all the talk of viruses, sexual predators and hackers, the majority of us are comfortable and confident enough to shop online, access our bank accounts or enter personal data.

The problem that most people have now is that they are growing blasé towards the dangers. Have any of you ever been targeted by a hacker? Have any of you had your identity stolen or your bank account illegally accessed?

The chances are that you will answer no to both of the above questions, but a recent survey by the Get Safe Online government initiative, produced some worrying statistics that show that internet crime is climbing fast.

“A survey of UK internet adult users – who number 29 million – found that 12% had experienced online fraud in the last year," the survey said 

“In that time, 6% of all internet users suffered fraud while shopping online, 5% experienced another form of general online fraud and 4% were subject to bank account or credit card fraud as a result of activity online.”

The figures speak for themselves – but perhaps the most worrying thing is that fewer than half of internet users surveyed feel they are responsible for their own online safety, 16% believe their bank is wholly responsible for their online protection, whilst 13% feel that it is up to their internet service provider.

What is truly concerning about this is that, as increasing amounts of people are using the internet, the number of people failing to take responsibility for their own security online is giving criminals a much larger feeding ground.

One major problem with security remains passwords – with people not aware of the simple but vital methods from guarding yourself from the most simple level of internet crime.

If you use the internet for any time at all then you will use passwords. Passwords to have your own blog, passwords for message boards, passwords to internet bank, buy and sell on auction sites or buy from shops.

At least half these things involve moving money online – and this makes it an obvious target for the criminal fraternity.

Passwords, passwords, passwords.

There’s nothing worse than being made to feel like some naughty schoolchild when you are reminded about internet security. ‘Your passwords are weak’ we are told, ‘don’t use the same password for multiple sites.’

However, inevitably, through a mixture of haste, poor memory and, let’s be honest laziness, the chances are you use the same mix of numbers and letters to access multiple things on the internet.

The amount of people using their football club, or even ‘password’ as their password is dwindling as we get used to accessing data daily and are aware that it doesn’t take much to rumble something as simple as that.

But even if you managed to remember that random 10 letter string of numbers and letters that is not linked to any personal information, are you using it for multiple sites?

Will your brilliant password be quite so great when a hacker who finds your information on one site you used it for manage to hack into every single one of your secure sites, spending money online in your name, stealing your credit card number, and possibly even your entire identity to fuel his nefarious schemes?

Using multiple passwords is a pain; of course it is – we aren’t built with an infinite memory for strings of code and, for most of us, remembering the handful of passwords or variations on a theme we do use is tough enough.

But we have to. Find a system, find a way - do whatever you need to, but get yourself password protection that works.

Simple rules for passwords

Don't use your football team / name / date of birth:
If it’s something that is connected to you in any way then it is easy enough to guess. If your MySpace identifies you as a Spurs fan then a hacker is going to guess at every player, the ground name, legends etc. Family names, pet names, dates of birth and their like can all be discovered relatively easily.

Use a strong password:
A string of numbers and letters is much better than words – with some hackers simply running dictionary programs that try every word in the language. The longer the better – so aim at a password of a minimum of 7 characters. If you use characters such as pound signs, @ or % then remember foreign keyboards may make it difficult to type things.

Change it regularly:
We all curse our PC at work when it tells us our password is going to expire in two weeks’ time. ‘I only just remembered the last one’ is a fairly typical response – but the annoyance is there for a reason. Regularly changed passwords mean that security is much tighter – and if anyone has already got a password, or is systematically trying passwords, then they will be forced to start from square one. Why not co-ordinate your password changing with the one at work – change one, change all – just make sure you use different passwords for different things.

Multiple passwords:
I know several people who have several passwords for escalating levels of security. There reasoning is that forum access is not as important as online shopping which is not as important as internet banking. The problem is that a) sometimes low level security sites collect enough personal information about you to make it worth hacking them and getting your details and b) people get your lowest level password and it gives them enough to get to your next level and so on…

Look after your password:
You wouldn’t give out your pin code to your credit card, so you shouldn’t be giving out passwords either. If you email someone a password then that email can be accessed with relative ease, and if you are typing in a password make sure nobody is watching. If you use an internet café to access anything it is best to assume that the password is compromised and create a new one if possible as soon as you can, but as a matter of course delete the computer’s cookies, and untick the ‘remember me on this computer’ button.

Don't use pirated software / beware of viruses
If you have illegal software on your machine then you have a much higher risk of having got a computer virus, worm or trojan. Sometimes these computer nasties log your keystrokes or store personal information / passwords and send it on to somebody else. Make sure you have your ant-virus software installed and up to date and try to make sure you have a firewall on your computer.

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