Back to School and Device Protection

Posted By: Helen Thursday 23rd September 2021 Tags: , ,

With many of our most recent blogs highlighting rapidly increasing numbers of cyber attacks, we’re using this blog to discuss device protection for your children and young adults. 

Some scary statistics;

Thirty days prior to 16th August 2021, Microsoft experienced 8.9 million enterprise malware reports. Of this mammoth number, 60% were attributed to education.

Those in education had to alter their way of learning due to COVID-19 back in 2020, posing the perfect opportunity for cyber criminals to up their anti. Unfortunately, children and students without bank accounts and credit cards are unlikely to realise the effects of identity theft until later in life.

Schools across the UK had to adapt, quickly. Distance learning formats were set up, differing across the country with teachers and school boards having to consider the best possible cyber defence.

Establishing Cyber Security

Ensuring solid cyber security is not a small task. Policies and procedures need to be created and taught to both staff and students to ensure protection. Backup and recovery capabilities are required whilst protection against unauthorised access is fundamental. Taking the security of your children’s devices into your own hands is essential. Not only are you no longer simply relying on external sources for protection, you’re adding another level of security.

Your device, your risk!

If you pay for a school device and the school’s systems are hacked, your privacy has all of a sudden become compromised. Bank details and personal information are readily at the hands of cyber criminals in this instance.

You can give a little back!

In taking responsibility for devices yourself, teachers are gifted back any time it would take for them to help figure out workarounds for hacked devices.

You’re protecting your children’s education;

Being denied access to school resources can also result in the loss of homework and important projects. Should this occur, the negative effects to your child’s learning is potentially immeasurable.

Cyber Security for your Children

When it comes to devices such as Chromebooks (a popular option for many), traditional security is no longer enough. Whilst Chrome OS denies entry to key internal infrastructure, other threats can still get through. Phishing, malware and ransomware all require consideration with accurate levels of knowledge and protection.

Protect Against Phishing

Phishing campaigns are prevalent within the education sector with cyber criminals sending messages and dangerous links across Google Hangouts, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Often used by students, the younger generations are enticed to click onto links resulting in the download of unsafe applications. Installation of anti-phishing security helps detect and block links, no matter their delivery.

Teach awareness to children;

It really pays to have a discussion with your children and young adults about phishing emails and specifically what to look out for. These unwanted emails often contain grammatical errors, strange looking weblinks and unrecognisable sender addresses. Even if an email looks legitimate yet contains any of the aforementioned, it’s likely not secure and usually too good to be true! Allowing children to spot such errors is a great way in helping maintain security.

Additional layers of security help keep devices safe and your personal information safer. Could you be doing more to ensure this?