Online Information Security Guide for Parents
Nowadays Information security plays
a vital role in our day to day life. Especially the social media have gone
main-stream among the teenagers. Starting from sharing personal information
with your friends and connecting with new people, online banking, and online
shopping have been trending. While posting the personal data online users are
vulnerable for threats, therefore let’s consider the rising threats which are
coupled with these trends and the article will highlight how to mitigate these
attacks.
First of all let’s dig into the
social network. People post sensitive data such as pictures, connect with
strangers, chatting and messaging strangers that you have never met
before. Anyone with a malicious intention can deceive people and
tempt them to revile sensitive personal data, which will be used for scams and
even blackmailing people. So let’s see how we can mitigate this. First of
all control the visibility of your sensitive data. Do not revel your sensitive
data in the public domain, use the data visibility option in social networks to
protect your private data and stop listing it in search engines for public
access. Also it is very important to be concern whom do you add on social
networks as a friend. Best practices do not add strangers. Most of the social
network attacks are based on deception which is also called as Social
Engineering. This can be used to perform identity thrift and steal your
virtual presence.
When we look into online payment
fraud, credit card fraud, banking fraud and social network password hacking
attempts a technique called phishing is frequently used. The base of this
attack is creating an identical web page of the original web site and tricking
the user to enter the user credentials such as the username and the password. For
instance you will receive an email from facebook which contains a link to win a
free iPhone. The temptation is irresistible so the users will click the link
and it will land into a page which is similar to facebook and the user will
enter the user’s credentials, which is accounted by an attacker.
To mitigate this we have to click
links with caution. Also by analyzing the URL we can easily segregate the fake
facebook login page from the original. ( http://www.facebook.com) because even
though the attacker can create an identical page they cannot manipulate the
URL. Couple of other factors to consider while doing an online payment is to
look whether the URL changes for HTTPS, which is a secure socket layer. So the
data transfer between the server and your PC such as bank logins, credit card
detail is encrypted. The attacker who uses to monitor your internet traffic
using an attack such as sniffing will not have access to your bank login or
credit card details. We can use some core level guidelines such as installing a
viruses guard and updating it frequently to shield your data against viruses,
Trojans houses and worms. Also using strong passwords or making your password
bomb proof will protect you from brute force attacks. To strengthen the
passwords use at least one upper case, one lower case, one number and special
symbol character while exceeding the password length of 8 characters.
No system is perfect in fact only
way to make it safe by locking the computer in a safe and barring it
underground.
1. Introduction for parents on online child safety
Internet has become the information
highway of a teenager’s day to day life. While internet opens the doors for
many opportunities to learn and share knowledge, it also opens a gateway to
access content which will harm the child such as pornography, illegal
communities or illegal content with a click of a mouse. Also internet will be
the ideal place where a stranger can introduce himself and keep in touch very
easily using the social networks, chat and any VOIP (Voice over Internet
Protocol) facility such as Skype or email. There is nothing wrong surfing
the internet but parents and children should be aware of what lies beyond the
browser. On the other hand, the internet enables them to make new friends who
are situated in distant places, and remain in touch with old friends. It
encourages shy people to come out of their shell. This would also indirectly
equip them to appreciate people around them. Research on these two paradoxical
views has shown that the internet did not undermine social and communication skills
development.
Children should be aware of the
information they are submitting to the web sites and the standard that should
follow by the organization. Especially children should go through the data
assurance and privacy policy of the web site before disclosing personal
information. This is very important because most of the social networks gather
personal data of individuals and sell them to third party vendors, who will use
the information as a part of their marketing strategy.
What are your responsibilities in
protecting your personal data?
· Think before disclosing your information, and think again.
· Never give your bank account or password information when
the conversation was not initiated by you.
· Only disclose information that is needed by the
organization.
· Question why someone might ask for your particular personal
information.
What are your rights? [1]
You have the right to:
· Obtain a copy of all of the personal information that an
organization holds about you. You may need to pay a small fee to the
organization
· Choose not to receive direct marketing information. You can
request this by writing to the organization concerned.
· Have incorrect, misleading or out-of-date personal
information about you corrected.
· Know whether an organization, or someone acting on their
behalf, is processing personal information about you.
· Know what information is being processed, why it is being
processed and to whom it may be disclosed.
· Know where an organization received its information about
you.
5. Reference
