The Met Police can feel justifiably proud of themselves, with an investigation leading to the jailing for many years of a pair of criminals who attacked computers with malware to steal £3 million from UK bank accounts.
Excellent news; high-fives to everyone involved. However, the force’s communications team slightly tarnished the win with some rather confusing advice on internet security.
It’s easy to forget that online security can be confusing for people who don’t spend all day reading about it. Odd jargon such as phishing and trojans, and shrill warnings from security firms don’t help matters, so the Met’s Police Central E-Crime Unit (PCeU) — the UK’s experts on such matters — has offered some tips to help.
Some of the advice is perfectly fine: keep OSes up to date, use antivirus software, consider installing a firewall, and think before you download.
Other tips it offered are rather confusing — and gathered bewildered laughs from the PC Pro team.
The PCeU statement advises:
“Disconnect your computer from the internet when you’re not using it.”
This one raised some eyebrows. By all means switch the PC off when you’re not using it, but disconnecting it from the internet seems a little extreme. Of course, the best way to avoid infection is to leave your PC in the box, but we’re not going to do that (it makes it hard to type).
“Run full disk scans periodically, which will help prevent malicious programs from reaching your computer.”
Err… what? How does scanning the computer prevent malware from reaching your computer? Doesn’t that mean it’s there already?
“Avoid opening attachments or following links in emails and on websites.”
It’s certainly good advice to not download attachments from unknown senders or click shortened links from untrusted sources, but if we never clicked a link again, Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s web would be rendered rather useless.
While the finer points of online security are complicated, keeping yourself generally safe on the web is common sense. But it’s hard enough to sift through the hyperbole coming out of some security firms and even the Government, without adding confusing advice from the experts at the PCeU to the mix, too.