A Warning To Protect Your Personal Information

Friends,

Consider this… a gentle reminder to protect/care for your personal information.  Last night a resident in a retirement village was phoned by people purporting to be from ‘Telstra” and telling them there was a problem with their computer connection. Unfortunately they followed instructions and this morning found their computer to be compromised and they received some inappropriate images.

So:

• Don’t give out your personal information to anyone either via email or over the phone if they are not someone you regularly deal with.

Consider this, if a stranger arrived at your door and asked you for the same information would you give it to them?

• If you do get hit with some form of computer challenge like this,

o   immediately contact your internet provider and let them know

o   get your system checked by a reputable local computer company who can ‘clean’ it for you.

o   Change your passwords on every system you use

• Be aware that you may have been unwittingly attacked, via a friends computer, so if you see something unusual, your system is running more slowly than usual or you are using way more data than normal, get it checked by an expert.

Look after yourselves and if in doubt get it checked.

To keep up with what’s happening around the district you can also subscribe to the myPolice blog. Its free and gives Police the opportunity to inform the community about a range of policing issues, good news stories and in some instances seek your assistance to solve crime.

You can find the blog at http://mypolice.qld.gov.au/darlingdowns/  Feel free to get on and have a swim around to get a feel for the information we are sharing and types of  reports that will be posted. You can subscribe to receive the posts using the tab in the right hand top corner and get the information as soon as it’s published.

There is also further information on scams/frauds and personal safety on the the Queensland Police Internet site; http://www.police.qld.gov.au/

And if in doubt there are the more traditional contact methods by phone:

Emergency                                           000

For non †urgent police attendance        131 444

Crimestoppers                                      1800 333 000

Submitted by:
Tony Rehn
Crime Prevention Officer
Darling Downs DistrictQueensland Police Service
Ph 07 4631 6755  Fax 07 4615 3200