October is Cyber Safety Awareness Month.
South Bruce OPP Const. Kevin Martin joins the Shoreline Morning Show to talk about some important reminders when it comes to being safe online.
The South Bruce Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) would like to remind parents that it’s important to connect with their children online.
Parents are encouraged to supervise their youth in the virtual world just as they would in the real world. You may not have good computer skills, but you have the skills to recognize inappropriate conversations or requests.
The following tips are being offered to help keep young people safer online:
- Set rules about household internet use
- Always keep computers in high traffic areas
- Know your child’s user name/passwords and contacts
- Realize that anything posted online is permanent
- Protect your passwords and make them hard to guess
- Be careful with webcams; your image can be captured without your knowledge
- Don’t say anything online you wouldn’t say in real life
The internet is a powerful tool for researching a school project, connecting with friends or entertainment, but there are pitfalls.
Be careful what you post or share with others, safe surfing starts with you.
Remember: If you’re not connected with your youth online, who is?
Tech-savvy scammers will use technology to create very convincing schemes designed to trick you into sending them money.
They will use the name of a legitimate company to gain your trust so that you will send them money or share personal information with them.
The scammer may have information about you if they searched you online.
The South Bruce OPP is offering the following tips to avoid becoming a victim of fraud:
- See the product in person before buying
- Research the seller and website to see if they are the subject of complaints
- If the URL is different than the actual website name, it’s probably fake
- Think twice if the asking price is very low
- If the “buyer” sends you an overpayment and requests a refund – be concerned
- Do a reverse-image search on the image to see if it is linked to scams and other websites
- If it sounds too good to be true, it likely is.
- You can’t win a contest that you didn’t enter in the first place.
- Your best defence is to verify any unsolicited contact. Unsolicited means that you didn’t ask for it.
Fraud is a multi-million dollar enterprise that will only end when they stop making money.
Anyone interested in more information on fraud can contact the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1 888 495 8501 or check online at http://www.antifraudcentre.ca/.