Final Comments on Teaching Kids

These are my final comments on what you can do to teach your kids to be good online citizens.

Utilize parental controls on all internet-enabled devices to filter, monitor, and block inappropriate activity.  www.onguardonline.gov gives an overview of the different types of parental controls. 

Review the privacy settings on social networks, cell phones, and other social tools your children use and decide together on which settings provide the appropriate amount of protection.

Stay current with the technology your children use.  The online world is constantly changing.

Know who to contact in an emergency.

If you know of a child in immediate risk or danger, call law enforcement immediately.

Kids - Good Citizens

Here are some additional things you can do to keep our kids safe as they explore the internet.

• Protect your children from cyberbullying by limiting where and what they can post about themselves and family.  Teach them how to respond if they witness or are a victim to cyberbullying.
• Keep the compute in a common area, not in individual bedrooms, where you can watch and monitor use.  This isn't about trust; it is about protection and open communication.
• Be aware of all the ways kids connect to the internet.  Phones, tablets, gaming systems, and even TVs have become connected;  teach your kids how to use each of these devices safely.
• Set up a separate account on your computer for your children to use that does not have administrator control if possible.  This will prevent software programs, including malicious software/malware, from being downloaded without the administrator password.  Do not share this password with your kids.

Teach Your Kids to Be Good Online Citizens

The internet is a wonderful place for kids to learn, play and discover, but it can also be a dangerous placeif not used properly and under supervision.  As parents, we must teach our kids how to safely use the internet and how to be good online citizens.

So what can we do?  I'll give you a couple suggestions today and follow up with more in a few days.

1.  Talk to your child about the potential dangers online.

2.  Spend time online together to teach your kids appropriate online behavior.  Pay attention to the sites they use, and show interest in their online communities and friends.

3.  Explain the implications of their online choices.  Information that is shared, including pictures, e-mails, and videos, can be easily distributed to others and remain permanently online.  Things that could damage their reputation, friendships, or future opportunities should not be shared online.

more later.......

Traveling Abroad

So what can you do to avoid the border agents from invading your data on your device?  Whether it's for ease of travel or to keep sensitive data out of government hands, the best thing you can do is refrain from traveling with ANY sensitive data on your devices (you may even think about your personal data).  Instead wehn you arrive at your destination, utilize a secure remote-access method, and do not have remote-access configuration saved on the machine.  Only after you get into the country should you configure for remote access.

You may be surprised about how "cloak and dagger" you must get, but be sure to NEVER let your devices leave your side.  This includes NEVER leaving your devices in your hotel rooms.  Don't underestimate how far states will go in monitoring, observing, and tracking you. 

When your journey is done, reverse the process.  Physically destroy the hard drive or perform a DoD standard erasure/wipe of the entire drive.  Don't rely on formattting the hard drive; data is forensically retrievable.

These are items once left to James Bond, but the reality of the 21st century is that we are all forced to play in the economic espionage game.

Don't Travel Abroad with Data

At all borders, including the U. S. border for U. S. citizens, your rights (including the fourth amendment) are basically out the window.  Border agents can take your devices, clone them, and take steps to compel you for system passwords and encryption passwords.

What can you do?  Stay tuned......

Bucky

GO BUCKY!  ON THE THE ELITE EIGHT!

How's Your Bracket Doing?

I've been doing NCAA men's basketball tourney bracketology for many years.  And this is the most unpredictable year I've ever seen.  While I still have 3 of my final 4 alive, my picked champion Michigan State is history!  It is fun to watch so called mid-majors beating the sol called majors!

Don't Mix Business & Personal

What can you do to avoid mixing business with personal usage?

When it comes to socially engaging online with coworkers, think carefully before you invite all of your coworkers to be your friends online.  Consider exactly what information you want to share with them versus what you want to keep private.

In the end, when faced with the temptation to combine personal and business accounts for social, managerial, or any other reasons, draw a clear line and keep them separate. 

Don't Mix Business and Personal

Just like individuals, organizations are creating a strong presence online.  Whether it is Facebook, Amazon, eBay, or another, businesses are leveraging a lot of the same services that individuals use.  If you're like most people, you probably tie your accounts to your e-mail for notifications, management, and the like.  When your company is in need of one of those online services, it's all too easy to leverage your personal account for business purposes.

Privacy and risk are two very important issues that arise when personal and business accounts are connected.  For privacy, the demarcation between your individual privacy versus company rights is blurred when accounts are comingled.  From a risk standpoint, the amount of useful information to leverage for a targeted attack (against you or your company) can increase dramatically.  The fallout from such an attack against a personal account tied to one at the office can have serious ramifications for your organization.

A third issue tied to the first two is connecting with coworkers socially.  Doing so creates added context about your for attackers, and it also gives your collegues and your company an invited look into  your personal online life.

What can you do?  Next blog post.......

Install Mobile Apps

The last post summarized concerns about downloading apps.  Now, what can you do to reduce the possibility of downloading an app that has malicious intent.

• Download applications from trusted sources such as Google Play Store or Apple Store.
• For Android users, leave the checkmark unchecked for "allow installation of apps from unknown sources" in the security settings.
• Read the ratings and reviews.  People love voicing their opinions and frustrations, especially when money is involved.
• Refrain from "rooting" or "jailbreaking" your mobile device, which grants administrative access and allows the installation of anything.

More Cyber

I expect you feel I am doing overkill with information on cybersecurity, but believe me, we are seeing lots of cyber attacks on clients.

Thousands of applications are downloaded each day for entertainment or to make our lives easier, but along with the fun and convenience offered by mobile devices comes increased risk for malware.  Money isn't just made from popular apps like Angry Birds.  It is also lucrative to create malware disquised as legitimate applications to mislead users into allowing additional permissions that give access to accounts, storage, contacts, network communication, system tools, and settings.  Some malicious applications are known to mimic banks, deceiving users into entering their financial information.

Looking ahead, it's only going to get worse as mobile devices become more affordable.  Security software companies have already rolled out malware detection applications because of the amount of malicious software already discovered.

Nest:  What can you do?

More on Think Before You Post

I am dedicating a lot of space to cybersecurity issues, but it is one of the most important issues facing all of us today.

So here is more on what you can do to avoid posting information that you would not compromised. 

Employ what you learned during communications about the responsibility of the sender and the perspective of the receiver.  Quick phrases without context, mixed with emotion, and combined with a lack of nonverbal cues are easily misread.  Always think about how you want to be viewed, and don't believe that it doesn't reflect on you away from the keyboard.  If it's posted online, it does!

Online gaffes are played out online all the time, whether by a politician or a celebrity or even among your friends.  Odds are you know someone whose relationship has been affected by something said online.  So always take a moment before pressing "enter" or "send" and exercise a strict rule about how and when you will engage online.  Remember this is ink for the entire world to see, and not only immediately, but likely until the end of time.

Post, Update

As we said in the last post, what you put out there in cyber space is forever. 

Today's speed of information sharing means that other users can rebroadcast your statements to any number of profiles and services within seconds, effectively creating thousands and thousands of copies.  Beyond rebroadcasting, search engines actively gather content across the Internet and store it on their databases, even storing the pages themselves.  Organizations like Archive.org and the Library of Congress make it their mission to preserve the Internet by copying billions of pages.  So one way another, whatever you post, comment, tweet, or share is immediately captured by something you don't control -- and can't delete!

More later.......

Think Before You Post

Like diamonds, your actions online are forever.  The idea that you can completely "delete" or "remove"something is a fallacy.  When you post, update, or engage online there are numerous ways that your content gets backed up, repeated, linked, indexed, and otherwise spread across the internet.

More on this subject soon. 

Software Hackers

OK, so what can you do to reduce the possibility of having your social software hacked?

1.  Know what software you have instalaled.  Take care to keep your web browsers up-to-date.  These days, many auto-update.  Make sure Java is set to automatically update as well and follow through with update notifications from it (as it usually requires user interaction to update).

2.  Check to see that you have the latest version;  software and operating systems are dropped from support, so be sure you use a version that is currently being supported.

3.  Check for new security patches and updates on a regular basis, the more frequent the better.

Whenever possible, use automatic update features, and make sure you turn it on!

Keep Your Software Up To Date

Criminals and hackers are always looking to exploit holes within software to gain access to your computing devices.  One method they use is to look for vulnerabilities within software code to target their attacks.  Once these vulnerabilities are discovered, software providers rewrite or update their software code to "patch" the holes so they cannot be exploited.  In 2015 over 100 patch bulletins were issued.

Microsoft isn't alone in the battle of finding and patching these holes.  All software providers are in this cat-and-mouse game of staying ahead of the criminals.  That is why it is important to update your operating system and installed software regularly. 

Next blog post will tell you what you can do to protect yourself in this area.

What You Can Do

So how do you know who you are talking to on social virtual networks? 

Always think twice.
Remember that online friends are not the same as real-life friends.
Never agree to meet someone by yourself if you do not know them.
Do not give your personal information online.  Keep your last name, address, and phone number   private.
Profiles can be fake;  don't trust simply what is posted online.
Understand the potentially dangerous situations that could occur online and in real life, and be certain not to expose yourself to them. 

Know Who You Are Talking To

It's easy to lie about who you are on social virtual networks.  Whether it's a small omission on a profile or something more nefarious, there is no question that people are generally free to create whatever identity they want online.  That freedom occasionally leads to extreme cases of complete identity manipulaltion.

There are many serial predators online with fake identities  waiting to victimize you.  It's up to you to do the digging to know who is on the other end of the screen.  Are they the real thing or something else?  How can you trust that they are who they say they are?  Do you take the same precautions on the Web that you tell your children to take?

Next post we will talk about what you can do to protect yourself.