From Sony to Talk Talk, these days it's hard to log in to your internet without seeing another news story about a major corporation having its digital pants pulled down by cyber criminals.
But what would happen if you were the hackers' next target? What could they do if they got access to your computer or smart phone?
Here, The Ugly Truth's Technology Correspondent Jeremy Metadata explains his eight-step strategy to avoiding Cybergeddon.
1 Avoid email scams
These are where somebody sends you an email along these lines. "Dear Diego (which probably isn't even your name), I'm in Magaluf and somebody's stolen my phone and wallet. Please wire me £600 or else I'll have no money for food and tattoos. Yours, Juan (might not even be his real name)."
While these requests are usually completely legit, they might not be and there's always a slim possibility Juan might be having you on.
So what should you do? You could just delete the email straight away, but then you risk hurting Juan's feelings, or worse. My advice is to compromise and give him half of what he's after, in this case £300.
If he's legit, he'll be grateful for your help, and he'll probably scrape the other £300 off another Diego. If he's a crook, you'll have the satisfaction of knowing his evil plan to fleece you of £600 has semi-failed semi-miserably.
2 Phight off phishing attacks
The other kind of email scam is called phishing. This is where cyber crooks trick you into downloading viruses and such like onto your computer. They do this by luring you into clicking on a link that looks completely fair enough, but is actually jam packed full of cyber badness. So their email might say 'Dear Madam, you have won a free penis enlargement. Click here for a substantially bigger penis' but when you click on the link, you find your penis is barely any larger than it was before and the cyber criminals now have complete control of your computer, meaning they could beat your record on Minesweeper and you wouldn't even know it.
3 Have a strong password
Your password needs to be something that's easy for you to remember, but hard for anybody else to guess. My suggestion would be something that relates to the sound your first ever girlfriend/boyfriend made when you bought them a present they didn't really like. Something like "Eeeurrrggh!" or "Yeeeeuuuuchh!". However, you'll need plenty of alternatives as IT experts recommend you change your password three or four times a minute. Making such frequent changes can become a drag, so why not add fun and fitness to the mix by doing a press-up or a burpee in between each password change?
4 Turn the tables on the hackers
Statistically, there's a three in three (100%) chance your webcam will be hacked at some point (I'm staring at you right now, for instance - nice pants.)
Hackers will be hoping to see something sexy, so my advice is to throw them off the scent by pointing your webcam at a papier mâché model of you pleasuring yourself while eating some chips. It will take a while until the hackers realise they're not watching the real thing - but imagine the looks on their faces when they do!
If you don't fancy doing this, try pointing your webcam at something scary, like a poster of Jack Nicholson from The Shining, or the gang of masked criminals breaking in through your living room window.
5 Be breathtakingly dull
Cyber criminals will be hunting either sensitive data, like bank details and passwords, or revealing/incriminating material, such as footage of you seductively eating chips. Don't let them have it. Let your hard-drive reflect a life not lived. Don't open a bank account, don't take pictures of you by the Eiffel Tower, surrounded by delicious-looking chips. Instead, fill your computer with nothing but bulky mpegs with boring titles like 'Auntie Edna takes several hours to blow out the candles on her 105th birthday cake cos she's got no lungs'.
6 Get on the hackers' side
There are basically two types of cyber criminal - Russians employed by the Kremlin to destroy the cyber infrastructure of other nation-states, and 15-year-old nerds from Luton who see hacking as a welcome distraction from their spots and uncontrollable erections.
To placate both groups at once, change your screensaver to a picture of a Russian flag being placed on the moon, and install the latest video games popular with nerds (I haven't checked what the most popular games are these days, but they're bound to include one from the Doom franchise).
7 Beef up your security
Build a firewall using whatever you have to hand in your garden. Kindling, rocks, mahogany and bits of old Futons can all be used to put together a decent makeshift firewall. Then you'll need to add some antivirus software - Jamie Oliver's '15-minute Antivirus Software' has some useful tips on how to make antivirus software in just 15 minutes.
8 Plan for the worst
Chances are none of the tips outlined above will help you in any way. Therefore you need to be ready to plan for Cybergeddon. If hackers do invade your computer or phone, they'll be able to steal your identity. And once they've done that, they'll find a way of cloning your eyes, ears, feet and genitalia. They'll then use this advantage to frame you for all kinds of crimes, from ram-raids on your local branch of Majestic, to major terrorist attacks.
When this happens, you'll want to be long gone. If you can, build a wardrobe that can transport you into a mysterious winter wonderland dominated by a talking lion that weirdly has no interest in eating you. Failing that, try falling down a rabbit hole and asking a Cheshire cat for help. If that doesn't work, and trust me, it won't - you'll need to develop a taste for nuts and berries and head to the woods to live out the rest of your miserable life.
Good luck!
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