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Almost every teenager in the United States (approximately 96%) reports using the internet daily. As students prepare to return to school after the summer break, ensuring their cybersecurity practices are up to date is essential to protect personal information from increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. By teaching proactive cybersecurity measures, parents can empower their children to maintain a secure online presence, fostering a safer digital environment for the entire family.

Protecting Devices

According to research conducted at Baylor University, students are estimated to spend a substantial average of eight to ten hours daily engaged with smartphones or other forms of technology. These devices need to be safeguarded because they are integral to daily life, facilitating communication, learning, and productivity.

Here are essential steps to safeguard computers, cell phones, and tablets:

• Update Software Regularly: Make it a habit to update all software promptly. Updates frequently contain crucial security patches that shield devices from potential cyber threats. Encourage your student to enable automatic updates whenever possible to stay protected against the latest vulnerabilities.
• Use Holistic All-Around Online Protection: Install and activate reputable online protection software on all devices. This acts as a defense mechanism, detecting and neutralizing malicious software that could compromise personal information or disrupt device functionality.
• Secure Your Network: Use a secure Wi-Fi network with encryption (such as WPA2) and change the default administrator passwords on your routers. Avoid accessing sensitive information or conducting financial transactions over public Wi-Fi. Consider using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) when connecting to public Wi-Fi networks to encrypt internet traffic and protect data from potential eavesdroppers.

Using Complex Passwords

One study found that young students knew not to share their passwords with others, but only about 13% of them created very strong passwords. Creating a complex password is crucial because it acts as a barrier against unauthorized access to personal accounts and sensitive information.

• Create Complex Passwords: Use passwords that are at least 12 characters long, include a mix of letters, numbers, and special characters, and don’t have any easily guessable information like birthdates or names. A password generator can suggest strong passwords for you.
• Avoid Password Reuse: Emphasize the importance of using different passwords for different accounts. If one account is compromised, having unique passwords ensures that other accounts remain secure.
• Consider Password Managers: Using a password manager can help students securely store and manage their passwords. This eliminates the need to remember multiple passwords while maintaining security.
• Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Enable multi-factor authentication for added security. This extra layer of protection requires a second form of verification (like a text message code or authentication app) in addition to a password, significantly reducing the risk of unauthorized access.

Being Cautious of Online Scams and Phishing Attempts

Phishing attacks are prevalent and can trick students into revealing sensitive information or downloading malware. These scams often mimic trusted sources like educational institutions or familiar online services, enticing recipients to click on malicious links or download attachments containing malware. Once engaged, these tactics exploit vulnerabilities to compromise devices, steal information, or gain unauthorized access to accounts, posing significant risks to personal and academic security.

• Educate About Phishing: Teach students how to identify common phishing red flags, such as urgent requests for personal information or emails with grammatical errors and suspicious links.
• Verify Sources: Always verify the legitimacy of emails, messages, or websites before clicking on links or providing personal information.
• Report Suspicious Activity: Encourage students to report any suspicious emails or messages to their school’s IT department or a trusted authority figure.

To further enhance students’ defenses against phishing attacks, utilizing a scam protection tool can be invaluable. These tools are designed to automatically detect and alert users to potentially dangerous URLs embedded in texts, emails, or social media messages. Imagine receiving a suspicious link in what appears to be a package delivery notification or a bank alert—this tool’s AI technology swiftly identifies such threats and alerts you before you click, providing peace of mind against falling victim to phishing scams. As a proactive measure, it can even block access to risky websites if you inadvertently follow a scam link, effectively bolstering your defenses across various digital platforms.

Protecting Personal Information

A Pew Research Center survey found that the majority of U.S. teens use social media sites like TikTok (67%), Instagram (62%) and Snapchat (59%). Social media serves as a powerful tool for connecting, discovering, and exchanging information. However, oversharing can inadvertently expose us to threats posed by scammers, hackers, and data aggregators. To stay better protected on social media, consider these tips:

• Limit Social Sharing: Advise students to refrain from disclosing sensitive details like home addresses, phone numbers, or upcoming travel plans. This proactive step minimizes the risk of such information falling into the wrong hands, ensuring personal safety and privacy.
• Use Privacy Settings: Make full use of privacy controls available on social media platforms to specify who can view posts, access personal information, and contact you. Customizing these settings empowers users to manage their online presence effectively, but finding and adjusting privacy settings on social media accounts can often be a difficult task. McAfee’s Social Privacy Manager can help you adjust more than 100 privacy settings across your social media accounts in just a few clicks.

As students gear up for another school year, cybersecurity awareness should be a top priority. Staying vigilant and proactive is key to maintaining a secure digital environment for students at all educational levels. By implementing these cybersecurity tips, students can protect themselves against potential threats and focus more on their studies with peace of mind.

The post Cybersecurity Tips for Students Returning to School appeared first on McAfee Blog.

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Blog moderation policy.

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Probably like you, I’ve always struggled to find enough time to stay up to date with all my friends. So when I discovered social media in 2007 and joined Facebook, I was elated to have found a way to keep up with everyone. How I loved seeing snaps of my friends’ babies and kids. Hand on heart, it was joyous! However fast forward to 2024 and the ‘thinking’ around online sharing aka ‘sharenting’ has completely changed. No longer is sharing pics of our kids considered to be a safe and joyous past time. In fact, most experts now believe that sharing pics of our kids online may in fact be putting them in danger.

Mark Zuckerberg Never Shares Pics of His Kids Online

Despite the multitude of ‘mumfluencers‘ and parenting content creators on your social media feeds who normalise ‘sharenting’, some of the biggest players in the tech space have a very different approach. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Meta, never shares pics of his daughters. In 2023, he did share a sweet family photo but he used emojis to cover his 2 older daughters’ faces. Although he doesn’t have kids of his own, Apple boss Tim Cooke has also spoken publicly about heavily encouraging his nephew to not be involved in social media. And this approach is also shared by many big names in Hollywood with celebrities like Kristen Bell, Gigi Hadid, and Orlando Bloom also blurring images or using emojis to help protect their kids’ privacy on social media.

Now, I’m not suggesting that we need to take all our parenting tips from tech giants and celebrities, but it does highlight a trend amongst high-profile individuals that I think is definitely worth noting. Could Zuckerberg’s use of emojis be a message that it is in fact the end user’s responsibility to protect themselves online? Or is it a result of firsthand knowledge of what happens when pictures of children end up in the wrong hands?

What Are The Risks With ‘Sharenting’ – Apart From Embarrassment?

While your teen may nominate embarrassment as the top reason for parents not to share pics online, the potential risks of ‘sharenting’ are far greater than simply avoiding the cringe. Here are the top ones to consider:

1. When You Share Pics You Lose Control Of Them

The minute you upload a pic online, you are effectively relinquishing ownership of it. There’s nothing to stop anyone from copying, altering, editing, or sharing any picture that you post online. You may also be surprised to know that when you share a picture on social media, you are agreeing to the site’s terms & conditions – even if you haven’t read them! These terms often include a licensing agreement which means that once you have posted an image to a social media platform like Facebook, you are granting Facebook ownership of the content through a licensing term. In short, you lose control over who sees your child and what they do with the image.

2. When You Share Pics You Risk Identity Theft

Cybercriminals are very skilled at putting together various ‘puzzle pieces’ to help steal an identity. If a parent is sharing regular happy snaps of key childhood events, it wouldn’t take a cybercriminal long to work out a child’s full name, birthday, hometown, or even school simply from the images, captions, and comments.

And once they’ve got their hands on the image and personal information, it takes little time for a skilled scammer to create fake profiles and an online identity. Once the fake identity has been created, applying for credit and setting up accounts becomes a breeze. According to the US Federal Trade Commission, identity theft of kids under 19 is a growing trend. In the first half of 2024, it accounted for 3% of all identity theft cases – up from 2% last year.

3. When You Share Pics You Risk Sexual Exploitation and Deepfakes

Unfortunately, there are some depraved individuals in this world who make it their life’s work to steal images of minors for sexual exploitation purposes. Images are often edited and manipulated and then shared or sold on child exploitation websites. The sophistication of artificial intelligence software now means that images can easily be easily manipulated and even animated. This is known as deepfake technology and it is a very big problem. In fact the Australian eSafety Commissioner estimates that 90% of deepfakes are explicit. Having your image manipulated and used as a pornographic deepfake would be devastating. The impact on their mental health would be profound and it could also have lasting negative effects on one’s personal and professional life.

Are There Any Workarounds? Can You Give Me A Plan B?

In an ideal world, we would all follow the lead of Mark Zuckerberg and Hollywood celebs and not post any pic of our kids online. Remember, if there are no photos or personal details about your child online, then the problem goes away. But if you don’t think you can break the habit, then here’s what I strongly suggest you do from now on:

1. Think Before You Share

Take a moment before you upload and ask yourself whether the photo really needs to be shared on social media. Perhaps you could share it in a group chat with close family and friends instead? Think of it as a numbers game – the less you share, the less risk there is that the photo will end up in the wrong hands.

2. Check Your Privacy Settings – and Your Friends!

Every social media platform will have an option to allow you to only share images with your friends. Please set this up. Some will also give you the option to limit what can be shared from your posts – take this up too. And while you are at it, maybe give your friends list a once over. If you don’t even remember who someone is or have had limited contact, it might be time to delete!

3. Minimise Personal or Identifying Information in Any Pic You Share

Always scan your pics to ensure there are no identifying details. Your child’s name, school details, and birth date are all nuggets of gold for a cybercriminal who is trying to steal an identity. Always disable geotagging which will also get rid of any potential location data on an image. But don’t forget that all digital pics contain metadata which includes the location of the pic. This can be disabled but if that’s all too complicated, simply use a screenshot of an image instead of the original image and the problem goes away!

4. Consider Watermarking Photos

Adding a digital watermark to photos will make it much harder for deepfake creators to use your images. It becomes a more complicated procedure which could also possibly be traceable. There are several free apps that can easily help you add a watermark including my personal favourite Canva.

Now, if you’re reading this and feeling incredibly guilty about everything you’ve shared to date, please stop right there. Don’t beat yourself up. Parenting is a journey, and we are all learning and evolving as new information comes to light.

So, don’t panic. Instead, why not commit to rethinking your approach going forward? And if you have a spare hour or 2, go back over your social media posts and remove anything you aren’t sure about. And ensure all your settings are private!

You’ve got this!

The post Why Sharing Your Kids’ Pics Online Is Not A Good Idea appeared first on McAfee Blog.