Keep Your Home Cyber Safe

Author and Cyber Expert, Ken Knapton shares tips to keep your home cyber safe.

Here are some solutions for some common cyber trouble spots:

1. Wireless access in your home.

Problem: potential access to inappropriate content.

Suggestions:

• Disable game console wireless Internet access.

• Password-protect your wireless access so you know which devices connect, and so you don’t become an access point for your neighbors children.

• Consider a wireless gateway filter (such as Pandora’s Hope, if we can name a specific product).

2. Cell Phones web access.

Problem: potential access to inappropriate content and potential for “sexting”.

Suggestions:

• Charging station at night.

• Consider disabling web access via your service provider.

• Spot-check photos and text messages

3. Online addictions.

Problem: Social networking and online games can be very addicting. There are no “natural bounds”.

Suggestions:
• Set rules and guidelines

• Use time controls features of your operating system or filter

• Become “friends” with your children on their social network

• Spot-check their account – have them log in, and look at their “wall” with them

Top 5 things to do:

Install a filter

Set time controls

Set up a “charging station” for phones and other mobile devices

Spot check cell phones and social network accounts

Talk – set up guidelines, rules and tools, be actively involved in your children’s digital world.

Ken Knapton is a Cyber Safety expert and the author of “Cyber Safety: Maintaining Morality in a Digital World”.
www.amazon.com/Cyber-Safety-Maintaining-Morality-Digital