Teach Your Children Well: Protect Your Family Online
As a parent, you naturally want to protect your family from harm. You remind your kids to button their coats in order to protect them from the cold. You lock the door at night in order to protect your family and belongings as you sleep. But how do you protect your family from something that’s already in your home: the Internet?
Don’t Click Here
One important rule for all Internet users is to never click on a link or attachment sent by someone you don’t know. This can open images you’d rather your kids not see, or open viruses that infect your system. Even friends aren’t always trustworthy sources. If your friends’ accounts have been hacked or infected, what they send isn’t safe either.
One all-too-common scam involves receiving a message from a friend that contains a link. When you click on the link, a virus is unleashed that immediately sends the same message and link to everyone in your address book—with your name on it. This can happen through email, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. Remember that if the message doesn’t sound like your friend wrote it, and it doesn’t explain what the link is, you shouldn’t click on it.
Too Much Information
Teach your children to never enter personal information online without asking you first. This includes full names, birth dates, addresses, and other identifying pieces of information. For older children and adults, this also includes credit card numbers, passwords, PIN numbers, and government ID numbers. If you receive an email message claiming to be from your bank and asking you to click on the link to enter personal information, chances are that this is a scam. The information won’t go to your bank at all; it’s going to the thief who set up the link. If you aren’t sure if a message is from your bank, contact the bank directly and ask them.
Children may receive messages from predators posing as friends their age. They need to understand that when they don’t really know who’s on the other end of the connection, the connection isn’t safe. Predators can use personal information the children give out to find them later. Teach them which information they should not give out, and remind them of it regularly.
Ground Rules
Here are some other good rules for keeping your family safe on the Internet:
• Use parental control software and Internet filters. They may not eliminate all dangers, but they can help you control and monitor your children’s computer usage.
• Keep passwords where others can find them. Your children should not have accounts that you cannot access if needed.
• Teach your family to use different passwords for different accounts. If a hacker gets past one password, gaining access to accounts with the same password becomes much easier.
• Talk to your family about what they do on the Internet. Visit the sites they frequent, and make sure they’re safe hangouts.
Common Sense
The number of scams on the Internet may seem frightening. But you can spot many of them by staying informed about the latest tactics, and by using some common sense. If something looks too good to be true, it probably is. If you aren’t sure you should enter a piece of information, you probably shouldn’t.
John Deschamp is a father of 3 and a network administrator who blogs for highspeedinternet.net, a site he often recommends to those looking to learn more about how cable internet works
