While we talk about online safety each week on this blog, October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM), a time to come together and turn up the volume on the digital safety and security conversation worldwide.
To kick off that effort, here’s a comprehensive Device and App Safety Guide to give your family quick ways to boost safety and security.
Device Safety Tips
Update devices. Updates play a critical role in protecting family devices from hackers and malware, so check for updates and install promptly.
Disable geotagging. To keep photo data private, turn off geotagging, which is a code that embeds location information into digital photos.
Turn off location services. To safeguard personal activity from apps, turn off location services on all devices and within the app.
Review phone records. Monitor your child’s cell phone records for unknown numbers or excessive late-night texting or calls.
Lock devices. Most every phone comes with a passcode, facial, or fingerprint lock. Make locking devices a habit and don’t share passcodes with friends.
Add ICE to contacts. Make sure to put a parent’s name followed by ICE (in case of emergency) into each child’s contact list.
Back up data. To secure family photos and prevent data loss due to malware, viruses, or theft, regularly back up family data.
Use strong passwords. Passwords should be more than eight characters in length and contain a mix of capital and lower case letters and at least one numeric or non-alphabetical character. Also, use two-factor authentication whenever possible.
Stop spying. Adopting healthy online habits takes a full-court family press, so choose to equip over spying. Talk candidly about online risks, solutions, family ground rules, and consequences. If you monitor devices, make s ..
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