Staying safe online, from someone who did it for a living

For forty years my job was to stop criminals getting into a bank. I ran information security and IT for a financial services company in the City of London, chaired an industry cyber security committee, and spoke about it in New York, Chicago, Paris and a good many conference rooms. I hold the certificates that go with that work, if you want to check: CISSP, CISM, C|CISO, CEH and CHFI, and a master's degree in cyber security.

Now I live near Thornton-le-Dale, and the criminals I used to keep out of the bank are ringing my neighbours. The fake police officer, the fake bank, the parcel that needs a small fee, the grandson who has lost his phone. They are good at it, they are aimed at people my age and older, and they take more money from this part of Yorkshire in a week than burglars take in a year.

So this is what I do about it now, for nothing. A talk in the village hall, a few short pages here, and a film when I get round to it. None of it is clever. Most of it is the same five things, said plainly, by someone who knows how the trick works from the other side.

What's here

• The village talk: an hour on the scams that are actually arriving, for any hall, club or group that will have me.
• Five things I'd tell my own mum: the short version, to print and put by the phone.
• Scams doing the rounds: what is live in North Yorkshire now, with the date I last checked.
• How I check a classic car advert: the same habits, applied to the thing I spend my money on.
• Code-breaking: the other talk, on Bletchley Park and where all this started.

If it has already happened: stop, call your bank on 159, and report it at reportfraud.police.uk or on 0300 123 2040. Then tell someone. There is no shame in it; these people do this all day, every day, and they are better at it than you are at spotting it. That is the whole point of this page.