In today’s day and age, we have everything at our fingertips. With the click out a button, you can find out how many gallons of water an elephant’s trunk can gulp (it’s 10 gallons per minute, by the way) or buy a vintage 1950s film and watch it instantly.
Unfortunately, along with the good comes the bad. Kids growing up today have access that many of us never did and are more susceptible than ever to online scams, viruses, and loss of personal information. With the majority of school and work happening from home these days, your personal devices—and your child’s online safety—are vulnerable if proper security measures aren’t in place.
To keep your computer and child safe, we have some easy reading tips for you below.
Educating your child is key.
Kids minds are very absorbent, and you’ll be surprised what a simple conversation about computer safety can prevent. Being open about what dangers are out there and explaining that not every computer issue is a result of a virus is a good start.
Knowing your child’s computer skill level will better help you to teach them about online safety. Talk about the basics such as what a computer looks like when it’s not working, and the personal information that should never be shared. You can then further explain the different kinds of viruses that exist and the actions you take with various security systems to protect your computer. Staying open to your child’s questions will help them feel more comfortable in the future coming to you if they make a mistake
Being aware of who they are communicating with is also a good practice. It is important to explain that stranger danger exists in an online environment and that sometimes, even all your preventative measures still aren’t enough. Reassure them that you will not be angry and to always tell you if someone has approached them online or the communicated information they shouldn’t have. A lot of content online is geared specifically to naive children, baiting them to click, take this pizza hut scam for example that lures you in with a promise of free pizza. You can read about the scam here on our blog.
Taking Preventative Measures
In the future, it is good to stay ahead of the game with some preventative measure to ensure you are keeping your data and your family as safe as possible. Here are a couple of easy but impactful things you can do. If you have a safe online experience, it sets your child up to have one too.
- Avoid suspicious emails, links, and websites. These days, hackers are getting creative, so taking the extra time to check that link or email address is worth it.
- VPN for the win! VPN’s can do a couple of things, but for your child, it keeps their location from being tracked online and also keeps information from being intercepted on public networks.
- Everyone has heard this one, but we can’t stress it enough. That password you have that is ‘password’ isn’t going to cut it. Creating strong combinations of letters, numbers, and symbols is a smart technique.
- The more layers of security, the better. Install more than just anti-virus applications. Bulk up your security with anti-spyware and adware as well, this better ensures your system won’t miss a beat.
- Back, back, back it up! Having a backup of your drive and files is a fool proof way to secure your data and avoid a total loss in a worst scenario.
- Parental blocks are easy life savers. Often these are available in browser options. For younger children, this is an easy way to keep them from accidentally finding a dangerous website or illicit content.
Have questions regarding computer viruses and keeping your systems safe? Drop us a line at Solutions@thetek.com
