As children are targeted more and more at online attacks, parents have to step up their computer habits and protect their children’s devices. Here are 6 tips to keep your children online safe.
At younger ages, children use computer technology and internet-connected devices. The risks of being online, unfortunately, won’t wait just because they’re young or because they’re your kids. Recent data breaches of VTech (one of the biggest data breaches of last year) from the toy manufacturer and uKnowKids parental information company have exposed information for children and made child online safety a major concern for parents everywhere.
During the VTech attack, a single 21-year-old hacker succeeded in violating the safety of the toymaker and robbing information in over 11 million accounts. Most of these accounts belonged to kids and their parents ‘ IP addresses, histories, personal information and other information were exposed to the attack. You could also find out about any child’s birthday, name and gender who had an account.
The data breach at uKnowKids exposes more sensitive child information, as uKnowKids produce software that enables parents to monitor communication and location of their children. In that incident, about 1,700 children were exposed to information ranging from social media details to GPS coordinates due to an openly accessible, misconfigured database over the internet. For a window of at least 48 days anybody could theoretically access the text messages and the exact location of those children. While the researchers who found the exposed database immediately notified the company, the event revealed the risks to safety in connection with online collection and storage of information on children.
For parents, these incidents bring to the forefront concerns about the safety and privacy of children online. Today, parents need to make sure they do everything they can to educate their kids on safe online habits and account for the safety of devices their kids use. Here are a couple of ways to help keep your children online safe.
If you want to avoid tracking your location and protecting your family in any network, it is best to get a virtual privacy network. It connects your device to a secure server offsite and uses an encrypted connection to keep that connection safe for your data.
Here are the 6 Tips to keep your kids safe online 2019
- Using a VPN has two main advantages
- Practice Basic Hygiene
- Judge their skill level
- Monitor their activities in specific who they’re talking
- Teach Them the Basics Security
- Use Parental Blocks Apps or Tools
Using a VPN has two main advantages
The first is to mask your IP address, so you can’t track the location of your kids online. The other is that your family is protected by the encrypted connection on dangerous public networks so that information cannot be intercepted. While you are unable to get a VPN connected to any toy in your house, for your smartphone, computers, and other common devices you can at least get one.
Practice Basic Hygiene
Your children with a safe online experience start with a secure online experience. This means that your computer remains in top form in terms of security and online security. Install a reputable antivirus solution to ensure the clearance of common viruses and malware in your computer. Other necessary steps include strong passwords, regular updating of the operating system and all software, and never downloading untrusted materials. Train yourself and your kids in recognizing common methods of social engineering, such as email or phishing social media.
Judge their skill level
You will be better able to teach them how to be safe online if you have a better understanding of how good your kids are with computers and technology. For young children or children who have no knowledge of computers, computer toys such as those created by LeapFrog or VTech may be worth starting. Once you have confidence in the computing experience of your children, you can get them to move on to more adult devices with more protective options.
Monitor their activities in specific who they’re talking
TO If your kids are old enough to talk to people online, then they know who they are. If they’re classmates, relatives or kids in the neighborhood, it’s probably okay, but strangers or someone who might pretend to be your child’s friend to get close to them are become victim. Look for cyberbullying or people with friends and family–unfortunately this happens more often than you think.
Social networks are specially designed for children who can learn how to communicate in a safe environment online. Another option is to speak with other parents and arrange for your child to have a pen pal. The more good choices you give them, the less bad choices they consider.
Teach Them the Basics Security
No matter how old your kids are, if you’re using a computer, you should know a few things, like how the computer looks when it’s not workable, easy electrical security and never give any personal information online (Go over what it might be). Show them what your security programs are and explain why they are important to your children. Do the same on the computer with anything else that you consider vital.
Explain to them that you won’t be angry if anything happens and that it’s not their fault if people approach them online. Mention that even security measures sometimes fail and that when it comes to the computer, it is a bad idea to trust anything more than you. Take a safe person to talk to your children about computers, and encourage them to ask any questions you might have.
Use Parental Blocks Apps or Tools
Parental block is still useful for a younger child to keep them away from unlawful content and stumble into something dangerous by accident. While you can try to buy a program, you can easily check whether your browser has options before you pull your baggage. Attentiveness and strategy in protecting your kids will always trump technology.
If you’re worried about the possibilities of the same program or setting, try using a different browser than your kids or have another computer account to login to. It’s a good idea, regardless, not to give them administrator access to your computer.
Nobody can expect perfect safety, no matter how much they want, but in some cases privacy and safety violations can be prevented by the right action and protections. The implementation of these steps and secure computer habits can go a long way to keeping kids safe online.