Parenting has never been easy, parents have always a million things to worry about, and with the emergence of the internet, it has become an increasingly difficult task to manage.
Many questions are asked by parents, such as " When should we allow our kids to get online", "How much time should we restrict", "How can I protect the kids from being bullied online? and so many more.
The article here describes some risks and the solutions you as a parent could use in that subject matter.
What Could Be The Threats On The Internet For Our Children?
- Fraud & Harassment: Lack of knowledge of internet security makes teens and young children very defenseless to fraud. For example, an email scam is one of the most commonly used fraud ways in the cybercrime world. By acquiring their personal knowledge through countless social media & chat rooms, they can easily impersonate a person they know and trust (uncle/neighbor... etc) by sending them an email a ridiculous comic line/offer/promotion... etc with a link that plants itself in the form of the virus in their machines.
The extent of harm to the machine and to your children is dependent on the type of virus and varies from getting control of their machine to acquiring their entire address book. Scams also vary from sending money to a "cousin in need" to portraying that individual.
- Cyberbullying: Bullying is not only a hurdle in schools and social clubs but in online cyberspace as well. Cyberbullying is described as the use of various types of tools on the Internet space with related technologies to hurt other people, in an intentional manner.
These are all serious challenges that face the vast majority of parents, who might be thinking that limiting screen time might limit the progress of children's education and exposure to the world. They might be right in a way, yet there are measures that are being taken to minimize that threat. Thankfully we have laws made to protect our young ones from cyberbullying. It is in fact a punishable offense under the IT Act 2000. Victims can file a case on the government's helpline number 112.
Steps to Protect Children from Digital Exploitation:
- The first thing on the list is communication. It’s important to stay close to children without suffocating them. Because they have to learn both about the threats of being online just as much as the advantages. Depending on age, a parent should start to tell about these threats in a simple and understandable language. With good communication and perception, children will also feel at ease discussing this material with you, and possibly defending themselves from harm.
- Set Rules: It is recommended to always keep the internet browsing devices (mobile/laptops/desktops... etc) in a public space of the house. This is very challenging since the emergence of tablets and smartphones, yet with communication, you can in time reach a solution that is in agreement to both. For example, internet browsing is solely allowed in the living rooms.
- Check: Your children must understand the condition of trust, that is earned and not given, and in order to build the said trust; we must check! Always check hard drives, chat histories, browsing activity, and so on, for any explicit material or anything you may find suspicious or compromising. Casual as well as planned inspections are recommended.
- Online Identity: Inform your children upon not using their full names, maybe a first name or even a nickname (nothing that could attract unwanted attention). Teach them to be smart with images or information they post, so they don't reveal too much information; for example, avoid revealing home address, etc. When it comes to email, its also advisable to share the account details so as to eliminate scam mail problems identity theft, viruses, spyware, etc)
- Some Basics:
- Don't talk to strangers Online: Teach them to evade it as much as possible, yet when faced with a position where they have to; then advise them not to never reveal personal information.
- Passwords: They should never give their passwords to anyone outside the environment of home, and change them frequently. This is one of the most popular methods of online molestation/theft/fraud
- Private Chat rooms are prohibited. Chat Rooms, DM’s are the absolute place for a child manipulator to hide, pretending as a minor - they should always wait in the public chat rooms. Only talk with people that you know.
- Clicking an "ad" is also excluded (ads that are normally placed as a banner, websites, etc) - because of these so many online scams and virus intrusions happen whenever clicked by one of those ads. They should also ask for your consent before downloading any material off the internet.
- Use parental control & filters: Many of today's operating systems already come with built-in parental control options, and it’s always a great idea to familiarise yourself with them. A plethora of options is available, from blocking certain sites to restricting browsing to the selected sites.
Using vigilance, common sense, and building a trust-based connection (as well as reading about it and educating ourselves) with children is apparently the best way to protect our young ones from Cybercrime. There are several references online on how to protect your children and the PC Cleaning Software like IGS Cleaner made for sprucing up your systems and deleting all the online traces.
Bullying is an old behavior that continues to be an issue for kids and teenagers.
It’s an often occurring case of physical intimidation and sensitive remarks that teachers and parents try to address at every turn.
Bullying has long-term effects on the mental and physical wellbeing of a child.
The internet – social media in particular – has allowed people to connect with friends or make new ones from around the world.
The opportunity to build new and meaningful relationships can often take a dark turn, which can haunt a person for a long time.The text above is a summary, you can read the full article here
What if sharing these opinions become targeting a particular person and directing hate towards them?
Social Media is an excellent way to interact and engage with people, but things spread faster than you can imagine.Teens are using social media, and digital messaging as a convenient method to befriend people, and build and maintain relationships with them.
They can walk away with anything because they don’t see the real emotional damage their actions caused or get a physical reaction online.
This has given the bullies the freedom to do or say anything without getting the appropriate punishment.Cyberbullying can lead to psychological distress, and just like any other bullied person, a cyberbullied person can go through fear, anxiety, depression, and stress.
However, this isn’t just limited to this.Real-Life Impacts Of Cyberbullying On A Person’s MindDepending on person to person, some might develop negative feelings and different symptoms.
This leads to the bullied doubting their worth and value.
Learn how to secure your network from consumer-grade IoT threats.Although most of the consumer grade devices are cheap and flexible in various work scenarios, they also pose a significant issue when they become a security disaster.
The primary reason why this issue has become major is that a substantial number of devices are always connecting to the network every day which results in a higher risk of hackers and crackers being able to access these devices and cause damage.By now, you must have heard about the FBI’s plea that all users should consider rebooting their routers following claims that a notorious hacker group in Russia has created some malware that can efficiently harvest login credentials.
It turns out that this malware specifically targets some of the IoT devices such as small business and home office routers and other network-attached storage devices.Subscribe free now to get more technological updates!
https://is.gd/DLAxlJ While this malware has been largely contained, there are fears that it still poses a significant threat since the hackers may have tracked the IP addresses of the affected routers and may use this critical information to redirect the malware to the specific routers.
In fact, IoT security recommends that you set aside a full budget dedicated to securing your network.
It is an autonomous network security operations platform that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to spot any malware and other security events in what may appear to you as normal network traffic.CREATE A DEVICE MANAGEMENT POLICY AND A VETTING PROCESS FOR NEW DEVICESMake sure that you implement a precise policy that stipulates guidelines for IoT device addition and connection to your home or work network which will greatly help rationalize the device management process.
