Online Security Tips for Parents, Kids, Organisation & for Everyone else

The internet offers much useful information and allows people to communicate over long distances. But as a user you need to be aware off some of the danger when you are online as you may not know what happens to your data when you send some information.

Below are some online security tips from CyberSafe Malaysia:

Online Security tips for the General Public:

• Don’t give out information about yourself like your name, house address and phone numbers to people that you meet on the internet.

• Don’t send a picture of yourself, your friends or family to someone you met or chat with online. If somebody says something that worries you or want to send you something, ask your parents or someone elderly. Be alert to whatever they say, especially if the person is asking many personal questions.

• If you plan to meet someone that you have met on the Internet, take your parents or someone elderly with you. People in real life can be different from how they are online.

• Don’t open up e-mails, files, or website links from people you don’t really know.

• Don’t ever give your password to strangers.

• Never to give out personal information including your parent’s information in a website, email, instant messaging systems, chat rooms or on message boards, especially when you are not sure.

• Remember that people online may not be who they say they are. Someone could say that they are “12 years old” girl but in real life they could be a man.

Online Security tips for the Parents:

Internet is highly accessible to anyone who has computer at home, including your kids. It is important to teach your kids internet safety in relation to posting personal information, chatting with friends, meeting people or playing games.

• Encourage your kids to share their Internet experiences with you.

• Inform your kids to tell you anything that they feel uncomfortable about on the Internet.

• If your kids visit chat rooms, use instant messaging (IM) programs, online games, or other activities on the Internet that require a login name to identify themselves, help them choose that name and make sure it doesn’t reveal any personal information about them.

• Insist that your kids never give out your address, phone number, or other personal information, including where they go to school or where they like to play.

• Teach your kids that the difference between right and wrong is the same on the Internet as it is in real life.

• Show your kids how to respect others online. Make sure they know that rules for good behavior don’t change just because they’re on a computer.

• Insist that your kids respect the property of others online. Explain that making illegal copies of other people’s work—music, video games, and other programs—is just like stealing it from a store.

• Tell your kids that they should never meet online friends in person. Explain that online friends may not be who they say they are.

• Teach your kids that not everything they read or see online is true. Encourage them to ask you if they’re not sure.

• Control your children’s online activity with advanced Internet software. Parental controls can help you filter out harmful content, monitor the sites your child visits, and find out what they do there.

• Do not allow them to post pictures of themselves or family members.

• Never give out password or credit card number to anyone.

• Never accept gift offers or accept invitations to your house.

Online Security tips for the Kids:

Follow General Rules

• Always follow your family’s rules for the Internet – they’re there to make sure you have fun and stay safe online.

• Don’t ever do anything that could cost your family money unless your parents are there to help you do it.

• Tell your parents right away if you read anything on the Internet that makes you feel uncomfortable.

• The Internet is a real community of people who are connected by computers, so treat people that you don’t know on the Internet as strangers that you might meet in a street.

Before you surf the Web, you should follow these steps in order to help improve the computer’s security.

• Make sure you turn on the Internet firewall.

• Update your computer patches.

• Use up-to-date antivirus software.

• Use up-to-date antispyware software.

Safeguard Your Personal Information

• Don’t give out information about yourself like your last name, your phone number, where you live, or where you go to school – without asking your parents first.

• Never e-mail a picture of yourself to strangers.

• Don’t ever give out your password, except to responsible adults in your family.

• Don’t fill out forms online without consulting your parents. There are websites which seek personal information and which use this information for commercial/malicious purposes.

Seek Help from Your Parent, Don’t Keep it to Yourself

• If somebody says something to you, sends you something, or you see something that makes you uncomfortable, don’t look around or explore; get your parents instead – they know what to do.

• Not everything you read or see online is true. You’re encourage to inform your parent if you’re not sure.

Managing Cyber Friends

• Making plans to meet your Internet buddies in real life is usually a really bad idea – how people are in real life can be very different from how they are online. If you decide to do it anyway, have your Mom or Dad help make the plans and go with you.

• Don’t arrange a face-to-face meeting with someone you meet on the Internet without parental permission.

Internet and Email Safety

• Don’t open up e-mails, files, or Web pages that you get from people you don’t really know or trust.

• Never to respond to a message from a company asking for security information including passwords, account logons.

• Don’t open e-mails from people you don’t know. You should also be told to never open an attachment in an e-mail, even from someone they know, unless you have specifically requested it.

Online Security tips for Organisations:

• Use an updating mechanism or system that would update all computers in the network automatically when new updates are available.

• Set your computer OS and security applications (anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewalls) to update automatically.

• If a computer is infected, isolate the infected computer from the network.

• If malicious code exploit one of more of the network services, block access to that service until it is rectified.

• Use a Internet firewall.

• Never open an e-mail attachment from someone you don’t know.

• Avoid opening an e-mail attachment from someone you know, unless you know exactly what the attachment is. The sender may be unaware that it contains a virus.

• Keep you network servers updated that host public services, e.g. HTTP, FTP and Email services.

• Email servers should set to block or remove email with attachment used to spread virus, e.g. .VBS, .BAT, .PIF, .SCR, .EXE files.

CyberSAFE, short for Cyber Security Awareness For Everyone, is CyberSecurity Malaysia’s initiative and Outreach Department tasked with educating and enhancing the awareness of the general public on the technological and social issues facing internet users, particularly on the risks they face online.

[Website]– CyberSafe Malaysia