Key advice for staying safe online

This October Queen Mary will be participating in National Cyber Security Awareness Month. The campaign aims to raise awareness of cyber security best practices and to stress the collective effort needed to prevent intrusions and scams to keep Queen Mary safe and secure.

This post is guest-edited by Queen Mary’s Information Security Team. Their advice to all students is:

• Queen Mary will never ask for your password or bank details via phone or social media
• Regularly update Windows / MacOS and your software, and your mobile device and software to patch security vulnerabilities
• Accept all the updates for your mobile device to patch security vulnerabilities
• Start the updates for your mobile device or laptop at the beginning of a lecture and it will have completed by the end
• If your mobile device won’t update – check you have enough space left
• Be cautious with email attachments,  links and QR codes; cybercriminals often use phishing emails to spread ransomware
• Regularly back up your important data to an external source and ensure backups are stored securely
• Use strong, unique passwords for your accounts and consider using a password manager to keep them safe
• Enable two-factor authentication on your social media accounts to help prevent them from being hacked
• When using public wi-fi, use a trusted Virtual Private Network (VPN) to secure your internet connection
• make use of library referencing software such as EndNote

There’s growing concern about AI-generated phishing attacks, including at Queen Mary. See the Security Team’s web page for an explanation of the risks and how to become more cyber-aware. You can find more advice and guidance on IT Services’ Cyber Awareness Month web page.

Take a look at Advice and Counselling’s Scams and Fraud web page for more detailed advice on the different ways cyber criminals may try and steal your information, and organisations you can contact for support.

If you have fallen victim to a scam, it’s important to report it to Queen Mary Security so you can get advice. It also enables the Security Team to monitor the kinds of scams affecting Queen Mary students and to quickly put preventative measures in place. You can also report it to Action Fraud who monitor trends nationally.

If your emotional wellbeing has been affected by a scam and you would like 1:1 confidential support, complete our online webform.