Cyber Hygiene

​Cyber, an abbreviation of cybernetics, is a word we use currently to talk about things that happen on computers and the internet. It also relates to cyberspace, the creation of computer networks in a world filled with human actors and artificially intelligent beings. When you use your computer, tablet, or phone to play games, watch videos, and talk to your friends online – all those things are part of the 'cyber' world.

Cyberspace, where you are right now, reading this, is an immersive world inside your digital device, on the internet, in the digital cloud environment, where you can discover and learn. Just like in the real world, you have to be safe and smart when you are in this cyber world. Just like in the real world, you need to behave in a manner that is respectful of others and is responsible for the actions that you take.

Hygiene is described as conditions or practices that help to maintain health and prevent disease, especially through cleanliness.
​Cyber hygiene is the practices and steps that users of computers and other devices take to maintain the system's health at their device level and improve their online security. These practices include the safety of their identity and other personal details that could be stolen or corrupted by malicious actors.
Good cyber hygiene is necessary to keep your cyberspace safe and in good health. Paying attention to your actions online and being attentive will prevent malware, computer viruses, ​and other unwanted actions by other cyberspace users from affecting your well-being.

Creating strong passwords that are also easy to remember can be a bit challenging. Different people find different methods easier. It is important to try a variety of ways to create passwords to see which ones are the easiest for you to remember, while still being difficult for others to guess.​

Four methods of password creation

1. Meaningful phrase
   ​Think of a phrase or sentence that's meaningful to you. It could be a favorite quote, song lyric, or something unique to your life. For example, "I love visiting my uncle Brian". It is already more than 8 characters long and has small letters and capital letters. Now, to create a password out of it, you need to add a symbol and a number, and make it into a single "word", like this:
   IL0veVisitingMyUncleBrian!​
   Do you see the number 0 in the word Love?​​

1. Use substitutions
   ​Pick a word, maybe something you like. Make sure it is at least 8 characters long. How about "chocolate"? Turn your word into a password by using substitutions. For instance,
   o = 0
   l = 1
   a = @​
   Using the phrase, you might get "Ch0c01@te"
   Or a word like ​"football" could become "F00tb@11!" with an exclamation mark to top it off.

1. Number and letter combinations
   Once again, pick a word. For example "textbook". Simply place a number after each letter and then choose a symbol to end it with. Something like this "T1e2x3t4b5o6o7k?".
   Or you could pick a mathematical equation 1+1=2 and make a password "1plus1is2!".

1. Keyboard patterns
   This time around you will think of the keyboard in front of you as consisting of little cubes, not of letters, symbols, and numbers. These cubes could form different patterns. ​
   Have a look at the blue circle. It forms the password "5Rfvbnju&6" when typed by pressing the shift button on two occasions along its path.
   There is also the purple zigzag that forms a password "Xft6​ujmko)".
   The pink squares have "!2WQ89oiTYHG" as the password.
   When using keyboard patterns, be aware that some shapes will look different on some keyboards. ​​Do practice your hand movement, but be aware of the final password composition.
   ​

I Have Forgotten My Password

If you have forgotten your password, you can recover or reset it. Most websites ​have methods for password reset. This is done through:

• a secondary mail address
• a two-factor authentication
• system administrator
• one-time password (OTP)​​

When you have forgotten your Opiq password, click on the "Forgot your Opiq password?". Then, if your account is set up with your email address, ​​you will enter your Opiq user ID (e-mail) and you will receive a link in your email to reset your password. If your user ID is not an email address, you will contact your school administrator to recover your password or to set a new password for you.

The cyberspace that we have described here, just like the real world, clearly has both good people and bad people. Beyond that, it also has good artificial intelligence and bad artificial intelligence. Bad, or malicious artificial intelligence is designed to interfere with the operations of systems, websites, web portals. These cyber attacks, launched by cyber criminals with the use of malware programs, cause huge losses to businesses and are a threat to digital systems across all sectors.
​
Websites and web portals use digital tools to verify that the interaction is taking place with a human being and not a robot, also called bot or cyber bot. One of the tools is described as the completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart, abbreviated as CAPTCHA.

• ​Completely Automated: It means the test is done by a computer automatically, without any human help.
  
• Public: It's a test that anyone on the internet can take.
  
• Turing test: This part is named after a famous computer scientist, Alan Turing. He came up with the idea that if a computer can have a conversation with a human and the human can't tell it's a computer, then the computer is really smart.

​That is what CAPTCHA is meant to do, have a conversation in the form of simple tasks like identifying pictures or typing letters and numbers. When you see a CAPTCHA, it's like a game that you have to play for a few seconds to prove you're a real person, not a computer program. It helps protect websites from things like spam, fake accounts, and hackers because it can be tricky for computers to solve some of these puzzles that you, as a human find quite easy.
When you ignore the CAPTCHA question, OR fail to click on the correct squares, ​OR answer incorrectly several times, the portal will assume that you are indeed a robot!