Your computer safety knowledge affects the safety of your online experience — and your kids’. Teach kids about what they can do to help protect your computer and your family’s personal information. Getting the kids in your life involved can help develop their scam “antennas” and careful internet habits. Look for “teachable moments” — if you get a phishing message or scanning results in a malware detection, show it to your kids.

Topics to discuss with kids include:

• Protecting personal information. Social Security numbers, account numbers, and passwords are examples of information to keep private. Don’t reply to text, email, or pop-up messages that ask for personal or financial information, and don’t follow any links in the message.
  Being cautious about opening any attachment or downloading any files from emails you receive, regardless of who sent them. Unexpected files may contain malware.
• Watching out for “free” stuff. Free games, ring tones, or other downloads can hide malware. Don’t download anything unless you trust the source and have scanned it with security software.
• Using strong email passwords and protect them. The longer the password, the harder it is to crack. Personal information, your login name, common words, or adjacent keys on the keyboard are not safe passwords. Kids can protect their passwords by not sharing them with anyone, including their friends.
• P2P File Sharing. Some kids share music, games, or software online. Peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing allows people to share these kinds of files through an informal network of computers running the same software. P2P file-sharing has risks: You could accidentally provide many people with access to your private files; you could download copyrighted material and get mired in legal issues; accidentally download or share spyware, malware, or pornography.
• Phishing. Phishing is when scam artists send fake text, email, or pop-up messages to get people to share their personal and financial information. Criminals use the information to commit identity theft.
• File-sharing software. Install file-sharing software and activate the proper settings so that nothing private is shared. Before your kids open or play any file they’ve downloaded, advise them to use security software to scan it. Make sure the security software is up-to-date and running when the computer is connected to the internet.
• Apps. Downloading may give the app’s developers access to personal information that’s not related to the purpose of the app. The developers may share the information they collect with marketers or other companies. Suggest that your kids check the privacy policy and their privacy settings to see what information the app can access.

If you have any questions, please call our Customer First Contact Center at (203) 462-4400.
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