Ever since employees were told to work from home while students will learn from home as part of the new blended (online and modular or via broadcast) learning system in order to avoid face-to-face interaction the workplace or schools to further stem the spread of the COVID-19 virus, numerous reports on data breaches and cyberattacks have increased significantly.
As schools, particularly in the public school sector, kicked off the 2020-2021 academic year this October (earlier in some private schools), many parents wondered how they can protect their children who will spend most of their school time online. Though they will be forced to adapt to new technology platforms and navigate through school virtually that may seem overwhelming, cybersecurity should not be.
Jen Miller-Osborn, Deputy Director of Threat Intelligence for Unit 42, the global threat intelligence team at Palo Alto Networks and a recognized authority on cyberthreats, shared via email to Frontpageph.com a few simple and helpful best practices that parents can look into. By following these, they can help protect their children from cybercrime and also preserve their online privacy.
Understand what your child is doing online.
○ If you’re using a personal device, set up parental controls on your child’s device so they must get permission before downloading anything or making purchases.
○ Check settings on popular apps, such as Fortnite, where you have the option to block in-game chats.
○ Know and understand the social media accounts your child uses. Know who their contacts are and what conversations they’re having.
○ Talk to your child about the openness of the internet, the ability for anyone to post anything online and how to recognize misinformation.
Be aware of suspicious behavior with video conferencing applications.
○ “Stranger danger” applies to the virtual world as it does in the physical.
○ Instruct your child to leave a meeting if there’s suspicious behavior that wouldn’t be acceptable in real life, such as unknown and unannounced participants joining.
Explain the importance of strong passwords.
○ Compare a password to the key to your house. That key protects everything inside and you need to keep it safe; keep it from strangers and even from friends.
○ Just like different keys open different doors, you should use different passwords for different personal devices and accounts that require you to choose your own passwords.
○ A password manager is like the key chain, an app that keeps passwords together and easy to use. Parents should have access to their child’s passwords/manager.
Keep an eye on what they’re doing.
○ Position your child’s screen so that you can monitor their activity.
○ If possible, use a virtual background when on camera for distance learning. It can help protect privacy and keep the focus on learning.
○ Talk to your kids about the dangers of clicking links with too-good-to-be-true offers. Instead, children should ask a parent before clicking. Once permission is granted – only then – open a new browser tab and go to the site directly.
Don’t reveal more than you want to.
○ Set boundaries about what your child can post online, such as no pictures of faces, no easily identifiable locations and no personal information, including full name, contact information, school, etc.
○ Change your device setting to turn off metadata on camera apps. This helps ensure strangers can’t figure out where you are from the photos posted online.
Keeping systems up to date.
○ Always keep your devices current with the latest software updates. They can include security updates needed to keep your family safe.
Still have questions? Refer to the links below for interactive programs that parents and children can enjoy together:
○ Palo Alto Networks cybersecurity education for students, Cyber Aces.
○ Upcoming Cyber Aces webinars:
■ Ages 14-15: Tuesday, Oct. 27
○ Family Online Safety Institute
○ Best Practices for Video Conferencing Security
As students enter this school year in a new virtual learning environment, it may seem like there’s a lot to remember when keeping kids secure online. While this information may be new for some parents or a helpful reminder for others, taking these few simple precautions can help keep the whole family protected, making sure kids are focused on what’s most important: tackling a school year that will be one for the record books!