Digital Safety, Security, and Ethical Practices
This section covers Digital Safety, Security, and Ethical Practices. The exam checks whether you can recognise phishing, malware, weak passwords, unsafe sharing, and unethical online behaviour, and choose safe responses.
Core rules and concepts
- Use strong, unique passwords with length and mixed characters. Never share passwords or OTPs. Enable two-factor authentication where available.
- Phishing tricks users into revealing information through fake emails, messages, or sites. Check the sender, link, and urgency cues before acting.
- Malware includes viruses, worms, trojans, ransomware, and spyware. Antivirus, updates, firewalls, and backups reduce risk but do not guarantee safety.
- Protect privacy: share only necessary personal data, review app permissions, and avoid public Wi-Fi for sensitive work.
- Ethical practice includes respecting copyright, citing sources, avoiding plagiarism, refusing cyberbullying, and not accessing others’ accounts or files.
- Report serious incidents to a teacher, parent, or trusted authority; preserve evidence rather than deleting it immediately.
Worked example
An email claims to be from a bank and asks you to confirm your password through a link.
Reasoning: This is phishing. A bank does not ask for a password by email. Do not click the link. Verify through the bank’s official app or phone number. Report the message and delete it after reporting. The urgency and the request for a secret are the warning signs.
Traps that cost marks
Do not assume antivirus alone is enough. Do not use personal details such as a birthdate as a password. Do not forward a suspicious link to friends to “test” it. Do not treat copying text without citation as acceptable. Do not share an OTP, even with someone claiming to be staff.