This summer you might have noticed a couple of new targets for cyberattacks.
Along with various town governments and hospitals, school districts have become a prime target for criminals. Schools handle a TON of personal data and often lack strong technology teams to keep their students’ data security. All of this leads to open targets for cyberattacks—something many cybersecurity experts are afraid of.
To help relieve some of the angst with back to school, I wanted to make sure you were considering some cybersecurity basics for your kids—whether they’re just starting out or nearing graduation this year. Practicing good cyber safety at an early age will help them keep their information secure through adulthood.
What about your youngsters?
For those of you with children just entering school for the first time, you probably are thinking, they don’t have cell phones or tablets. They aren’t going to be connected at school. But some younger students will have tablets with integrated browsers.
When connected to wifi, your child may be able to browse the internet, access YouTube or do anything else online. If you are concerned with access to the internet in early years of elementary education, make sure you have clear conversations with your child and your school to ensure that you both are on the same page as to what is acceptable access and what controls are in place to ensure that your child is not exposed to content their eyes are not ready to see.
As your child starts using a cell phone, make sure you teach your child how to use it—and other technology—responsibly. When I was young there was no warning with computers—simply because there was not a lot one could do to get in trouble on them, but today is an entirely different arena.
Get your child in a cyber state of mind.
This isn’t as difficult as it might seem. You know how you might get advisories, training, or phishing demos as part of your workplace cybersecurity? It’s because exposure to what’s out there actually helps get messages across a lot more clearly than being left in the dark.
If you keep a dialogue with your children as to what their risks are online, you will help them identify those risks when they come up. Because security changes so rapidly, there is always a moving target. Continued discussions about this—especially in relation to how your kids interface with technology and the digital world—will help them understand their risks.
As your students become more tech-savvy, there are additional practices we recommend to keep them safe online. (Note: you might want to ensure your personal accounts subscribe to these best practices as well!):
Authentication—make sure you are using a strong password when setting up new accounts. Remember to NEVER repeat a password across accounts. Here is a discussion we had a couple of years ago about password hygiene that still rings clear today.
Trust what you download—before you click on a link to download and install an app, PDF, or document on your computer or device, make sure it is not infected with something. If you don’t recognize the website, you might want to make sure you have a smart firewall [link] installed at home before bringing something potentially malicious on your home network. For apps, do your homework before downloading. I like to use trusted websites like Ninite.com to download programs to ensure that the copy of the app is not tainted in some way.
Avoid public wifi—I understand this is really hard to do, but simply connecting to a wifi service that doesn’t require a password should be off limits to ensure you are not transmitting sensitive data to an unknown party. If you have to use public wifi, we recommend NOT logging on to sensitive accounts, like banking, work accounts or sending any information that might be considered sensitive.
File sharing apps—file sharing has made all of our lives a lot easier in the last ten years or so. But realize with file-sharing there are many variations, some of which make sharing viruses and malicious attachments with collaborators quite easy. If you are using file sharing, make sure you and your kids understand your risks. I would recommend NOT using file sharing to exchange sensitive files and restricting accessibility of your critical files to others (perhaps only give read permissions to your collaborators).
Ensuring updates—just like at work, your home computer needs regular updates to prevent unwarranted attacks. Please make this a priority. Once a vulnerability is exposed, malicious attackers are actively finding ways to exploit and automate their attacks. Don’t be the easy target. Be sure to patch or update your operating system as updates come out! If you do not know how to do this, ask! We want to make sure you are keeping your home systems as secure as they can be.
Back to school should be exciting! Take a few security goals to focus your kids to make good choices when online and when working in the digital landscape.
