How to keep your kids safer online this festive season

With schools about to close for the year, and summer holidays fast approaching, kids around the country will be spending more time on their mobile phones, chatting with friends, sharing their holiday photos and consuming online entertainment, not to forget the gaming.

But how safe are they online?

Paul Williams, Fortinet Country Manager – Southern Africa, has these tips for parents to ensure kids are safer online this December:

Entrench online safety awareness

Talk to your kids about the risks and your expectations for them online. Make sure they understand what they need to do to stay safe such as keeping personally identifiable information (PII) private. This includes names, addresses, phone numbers and personal banking information.

Consider setting boundaries that may include rules about how long they may be online, what sites they are allowed to visit, and what tasks or activities they can do based on age appropriateness, knowledge, and maturity.

Reinforce the importance of not opening emails, messages, or attachments from people they don’t know, and never agreeing to get together with anyone they “meet” online. Take the time to set up your kids’ phones and check their privacy settings on social media sites for the safest possible experience.

ALSO SEE: 4 apps to keep your kids safe

Safer social media

Be aware of inappropriate content and unsafe or unhealthy practices on social media. Start practising family sharing groups with the same type of phones and applications that offer these features to the parents for monitoring and approvals process. In this way the parent has visibility of the child’s digital footprint and activities.

Also make your kids aware of the risks of catfishing, in which a person takes information and images from another to create a fake identity.

Encourage your kids to tell a trusted adult if they see inappropriate content, are unsure about something that doesn’t seem right or makes them uncomfortable.

How to defend against cyber threats

It is important that parents make sure their own devices, and their children’s devices, are secure. For online accounts, it starts with using strong and differentiating passwords. Some best practices include avoiding easily accessible information such as birthdays, default passwords provided with devices, the user’s name, or simple combinations of numbers or words (ie. 1234, pAssword).

ALSO SEE: World password day: Simple ways to improve your online security

Enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) is the next step in bolstering account security. MFA confirms the identity of users by adding a step to the authentication process, either through physical or mobile-based tokens. MFA is highly recommended for financial accounts, so if your child has an independent bank account, make sure they have it set up.

A significant threat stems from the network your child is connected to. Unsecure networks, such as public Wi-Fi are often used by cyber criminals as a way to gain access to devices that are connected to it. It’s a good practice to turn off Wi-Fi until it’s needed or confirm the network name and exact login credentials with the appropriate staff before logging in.