Web Surfing Tips for the Family

Web Surf­ing is becom­ing your kids’ #1 dai­ly activ­i­ty.  Is your Home Com­put­er Kid Safe? Par­ent­ing has nev­er been an easy task. Now add in Face­book, Twit­ter,  Youtube and so many oth­er social media venues, and the dif­fi­cul­ties and secu­ri­ty risks increase expo­nen­tial­ly.  Many par­ents, how­ev­er, are not mon­i­tor­ing their children’s inter­net activ­i­ties and are unaware of the dan­gers that are lurk­ing. Here are some tips every par­ent and child should know about com­put­er safe­ty.  Teach your chil­dren well! Kids should be using com­put­ers in com­mon areas of your home, cre­ate a com­put­er desk in the kitchen or recre­ation room.  Be wary of com­put­ers in your kid’s rooms with no surf con­trols and mon­i­tor­ing. You need to know where your kids are going on line.  Remem­ber that many smart phones are very pow­er­ful, sim­i­lar prac­tices should apply! Use secu­ri­ty soft­ware that includes auto­mat­ic virus scan­ners and fire­walls.  Com­plete pack­ages are avail­able from com­pa­nies like Kasper­sky,  Syman­tec , etc.,  that con­tain com­plete pack­ages of pro­tec­tion includ­ing parental con­trols. Keep your soft­ware and oper­at­ing sys­tem up to date.  This includes the free updates pro­vid­ed by Win­dows and oth­er providers.   The lat­est ver­sion of an inter­net brows­er will con­tain the lat­est pro­tec­tion against Hack­ers and Mal­ware. Soft­ware is updat­ed for a rea­son! “If in doubt…throw it out” applies to emails and espe­cial­ly attach­ments and links from strangers.  If you get a mes­sage from a con­tact with no sub­ject line, or sus­pi­cious lan­guage you should send your friend an email or call to inquire if the mes­sage is legit­i­mate. They may have been hacked.  It is much eas­i­er to con­firm the con­tents of an email before open­ing, than try­ing to rid a com­put­er of a virus…or worse. Com­put­ers are reli­able but not infal­li­ble.  Potent Mal­ware can ren­der a new com­put­er use­less and erase or com­pro­mise years of data in min­utes.  Make sure you make copies and do reg­u­lar back­ups of impor­tant data. The inter­net is a great source of infor­ma­tion. It is also the home of bril­liant hack­ers and con artists and more.  Don’t believe every­thing you read on line, and the old adage applies: “If it sounds too good to be true…it prob­a­bly is!” Safe surf­ing every­one!