For many, a new school year symbolizes a new beginning. For kids it’s as much a celebration as New Year’s Eve for adults. New beginnings, a clean slate and starting over. No wonder we want to prepare for it as best we can, to set ourselves, and our children, up for success.
The preparation should not only include the purchase of school supplies and books, today a very important part is, digital security and privacy. We may omit this at times, but unfortunately the back-to-school season offers a great opening for phishing, ransomware and other scams to deceive both us and our children.
Set yourself up for success
There are several threats to look out for, for example the aforementioned phishing scams or ransomware attacks. Make sure you watch out for the most common back to school scams, such as scholarship scams, tech support scams and other. However, using these tips you can prevent them from happening and have a cybersafe start of the new school year.
What to do?
- Do not click unknown links or open suspicious emails
- Avoid sharing personal information
- Keep your operating system (OS) up to date
- Never use unknown portable devices: USB sticks, other people’s smartphones
- Watch out for bad grammar/generic openings
- Use a strong password and don´t leave your device unlocked or unattended
- Back up your data regularly
- Ask your school or university about their privacy and security policy
- If you are a parent, invest in efficient Parental Control
Secure your mobile device
Whether you are a parent, a teacher or a child, your phone is a powerful tool. It is certainly a great tool to keep in contact, stay on top of assignments and other school activities. But it is also a tool for malicious actors to invade your privacy and security. Keeping it safe is therefore one of the key things in ensuring a smooth and safe back to school transition.
A great way to start is with ESET Mobile Security on your Android mobile devices. It is a solution that ensures security against a multitude of mobile threats while securing users’ data.
ESET Mobile Security aims to provide a safe environment by leveraging its Anti-Phishing feature. The feature integrates with the most common web browsers (Chrome and many others) available on Android devices to provide protection to any and all online activities you want to carry out.
We recommend you keep Anti-Phishing enabled at all times. All malicious websites, listed in the ESET malware and phishing database, will be blocked and a warning notification will be displayed informing you of the attempted attack.
Other features of ESET Mobile Security include:
- Anti-Smishing - protects you from SMS and App notifications containing malicious links
- Antivirus – protection against malware: intercepts threats and cleans them from your device
- Payment protection – lets you shop and bank safely online
- App lock – requires extra authentication to access sensitive apps; protects content when you’re sharing a device
- Anti-Theft – a powerful feature to help protect your phone and find it if it goes missing
- Network inspector – scans your network and all connected devices to identify security gaps
- Call filter – blocks calls from specified numbers, contacts and unknown numbers
- Adware detector – identifies and removes apps that display ads unexpectedly
- Real-time scanning – scans all files and apps for malware
- Scheduled scans – checks your device every time you charge it, or whenever you want
- Security audit – checks an app’s permissions
- Security report – provides an overview of how secure your device is
- USB on-the-go scanner – checks any connected USB device for threats
- Up to 5 devices – pay once, protect 5 devices associated with the same Google account
ESET Mobile Security makes your Android phones and devices easy to find and harder to steal, and it helps to protect your valuable data.
If you want to protect your phone with ESET Mobile Security, you’re in luck! From August 25 to September 7, the premium version of ESET Mobile Security will be 50% off. No need for a promotional code; the discount will automatically be added to your checkout! It couldn’t be easier.
The most powerful tool
Your most powerful tool when trying to keep your children safe in the digital world is educating yourself, talking to them about healthy use of digital and the threats they may encounter. Have regular conversations with your children about privacy, security and proper online behavior. Make sure they feel safe to talk to you about anything that might make them feel uncomfortable in the digital world.
To better educate yourself and your children, visit saferkidsonline.eset.com.