While online safety for my kids has always been a priority, I never felt like I needed to babysit everything they do on the computer, tablets, etc. That’s until as of late. The 10 and 8 year old have discovered the world of Google and to say the least, Google ain’t always pretty.
Gone are the days that I could simply ground them. My daughter uses a school issued Chrome book. Telling her no computer means no homework. *sigh* The joys of technology in the classroom. Now it’s just my job as her mom to make sure she understands the internet, how to act on it, what it can give you – both good and bad and how to be safe online.
Kaspersky recently sent over some information about kids online which is good information for anyone who has a child on the internet (which let’s face it, is most of us parents with kids over 3.)
Kids Online
Almost 1 in 5 parents have lost either money or important personal data due to their children’s unmonitored computer use, according to a recent survey carried out by Kaspersky Lab.
The survey also found:
- 27% of parents feared their children had been at risk on the Internet at least once over the last 12 months
- 11% of parents reported that their children had faced inappropriate content
- 7% of parents reported that their children had contact with strangers
How to Keep Kids Safe Online
So what can us parents do to keep our kids safe online?
- Click Carefully. Don’t click links from unknown senders. If you don’t recognize the sender, it may have been sent by a cybercriminal.
- Take Care to Not Share. Do not make any private information publicly available or send it to strangers, especially your contacts, addresses, your school, etc. Strangers could mean any people of any age you don’t know in real life.
- Too Good to Be True? Don’t trust tempting messages of any sort free stuff, discounts, increasing your reputation/likes/stars on some site, etc. Just delete such messages and don’t click any links.
- Protect Your Passwords: Use a different password for each different online resource. Make sure your passwords are complex with at least 23 characters in a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, symbols and special characters.
These results show that children and their parents face serious risks on the Internet. Luckily, Kaspersky Labs Parental Control function, available in Kaspersky Internet Security and Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac provides the measures parents need to protect their children from these risks. Here are some Parental Control features:
- Block websites with inappropriate content and delete them from search results as well as to implement restrictions on the information which can be posted on social networks and other sites.
- Control the amount of time your children spend in front of the screen, whether it’s on social networks or playing games.
What Else Can Kaspersky’s Parental Controls Do To Protect Your Kids?
- Parental Controls can be set at different levels for different children. It’s not an “on or off” switch…think if it more like a dimmer switch. You can set tighter controls for your younger kids, and allow your older children to have more freedom.
- Monitor as much (or as little) as you want. If you’re concerned your child is having inappropriate conversations, or perhaps becoming a victim of cyber-bullying, parents can easily monitor email and Instant Message conversations. Either have full transcripts of each chat saved for your review, or have certain keywords automatically flagged to your attention.
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