The Australian Cyber Security Centre’s Stay Smart Online program has declared Spring the season to freshen up our online lives.
The program has used its website to suggest that the cyber-spring spruce begin with a clean-up of the computer, ensuring software is up-to-date and anti-virus software installed and that it regularly scanned for malware.
It said the second stage could be to declutter mobile devices, making sure they had the latest updates on the phone, deleting or uninstalling apps that were no longer needed and updating the ones that continued to be used and needed.
This, it said, combined with the deletion of temporary internet files and other unnecessary data, would free up more space on the phone.
Deleting or de-activating old accounts and unsubscribing from marketing emails would also help clear out the inbox and make it easier to spot phishing emails, the program said.
“Once you have purged your computer and devices of unwanted files, back-up everything you want to keep,” it said.
“You can choose to back up to a cloud provider or to a hard drive you keep offline.”
It also advised seeking out the information you can find about yourself online and finding the source.
“Are your social media accounts using effective privacy controls? Review privacy settings on all of your accounts,” it recommended.
The program urged users to plan ahead by setting reminders in their calendar to do each step throughout the year.
“Allowing automatic updates for operating systems, software and apps can save you the trouble of remembering,” it said.
“You can also set back-ups to happen automatically as well.”
