The cybersecurity tips every parents teach their children

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They communicate via text. They splinter. Even if the end of the world was approaching, they wouldn’t look up from their phones. They are the children of today’s device-addicted generation.

They communicate via text. They splinter. Even if the end of the world was approaching, they wouldn’t look up from their phones. They are the children of today’s device-addicted generation.

Parents all throughout the world understand that the Internet’s benefits far exceed its drawbacks. With the help of the Internet, children may learn more, comprehend more, and achieve more. According to a recent survey, 60 percent of parents worldwide allow their children access to the Internet before the age of 11.

This generation of parents is parenting their children in an ever-changing cyber environment. Children learn and adapt quickly by nature, but this is especially true in this technological age. In addition to the myriad tasks that come with parenting, parents now have the added responsibility of monitoring their children’s Internet activities and leading them securely across the digital frontier.

It’s just as vital to teaching your child to look both ways before crossing the street as it is to teach them basic internet life skills.

1.Always keep an eye on your device

Smartphones, laptops, and tablets have a resale value that is reasonable. Furthermore, fraudsters now make more money by stealing data from these devices than by reselling them. Passwords, addresses, family members’ birthdates, and Social Security numbers command a high price in the underground economy. To commit identity theft, criminals can piece together information from all of these devices.

Children become good targets for device theft because all of this information is likely to remain on their devices as a result of school and sports activities that require it. Teach your children the importance of keeping these devices close at hand.

2.Use caution when clicking

Phishing, whether subtle or overt, is harmful. Malicious malware can infiltrate gadgets and cause havoc with just one careless click. Discuss with your children the importance of avoiding automatically clicking on links in emails. Demonstrate how to hover your mouse over a link to ensure it leads to a trustworthy website. Spelling errors, strange emails from well-known firms, and frightening messages encouraging immediate action are all obvious symptoms of a phishing email aimed to infect your device with malware. If you’re unsure, don’t click on the link. Instead, go to the company’s website and contact the person in charge of the customer support department to confirm that you received such a message. Fortunately, most good antivirus software will detect these fake emails before they reach you.

3.Never give out your password to anyone

You may believe that everyone understands the need for password security, but your children may not. After all, 76% of people share their passwords. It only takes a single second of poor decision-making to expose everything on your smartphone. Teach your children to create strong, unique passwords with at least 10 capital and lowercase characters, symbols, and numbers to confuse password-stealing bots that trawl the Internet. Change your passwords every three months and don’t reuse them across several accounts. If remembering all those passwords is too onerous, consider a password manager.

4.Use social media with caution

Many social media platforms require that users be at least 13 years old, while some allow children to sign up with their parent’s approval. Check your children’s privacy settings if they have accounts. The default settings may reveal more data than you want. Change the privacy settings to the maximum level possible. You never know who might be looking at their social media accounts. Teach your children not to accept friend requests from people they don’t know, as well as from you. Some friend requests are sent by bots that are designed to spam friends lists.

5.Be a responsible internet citizen

Keep in mind that the Internet exists throughout perpetuity. As a result, anything that is said online remains online. Even on Snapchat, nothing is truly removed. Unfortunately, because the internet has come to be the new playground, youngsters may be bullied both offline and online. Teach your children proper online etiquette and never to say anything hurtful. Instead, they should be nice and refrain from posting unpleasant comments. Let them know that cyberbullying victims are protected under the law, so they should come forward if they are being cyberbullied or know someone who is.

All of these are critical cyber safety skills, but children are children, and they make mistakes. As a parent, you may help protect your child’s smartphone with security software and help prevent this from happening.

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