• Question: while preventing danger online have you ever been in danger yourself?

    Asked by anon-204423 to David on 4 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: David Chadwick

      David Chadwick answered on 4 Mar 2019:

      Yes, I have received viruses via email, and once I was tricked into opening an email that was supposedly from the Inland Revenue. However, once I opened it, then I realised that I had been tricked. I emailed the Inland Revenue to inform them about the scam that was currently being circulated.
      I was also overseas once and my computer was hacked whilst I was teaching security to a class of students. It was very embarrassing.
      You have to realise that it is virtually impossible to protect yourself from everyone – no computer system is 100% secure. If you read the news, you will see that Google has been hacked, Facebook has been hacked, and even the Pentagon has been hacked.
      So all you can really do is make sure that your computer and your actions are more secure than your neighbours, so that they will be attacked in preference to you.
      As they say, when being chased by a hungry lion, you do not need to outrun the lion, only the guy who is running next to you.

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