By Matthew O'Brien of Telstra, February 8, 2021
February 9th is Safer Internet Day, a day when the world comes together to #startthechat about how we can make online experiences better for everyone. With more devices connected to the internet than ever, it’s important to make sure yourself and your family are safe online.
To help with this, Telstra have launched Telstra Cyber Security Device Protect with cyber security leaders Trend Micro to make it easier than ever to protect your household devices online. Whether it’s managing your kids’ screen time or helping to keep your devices safe against hackers or protecting your ID, Device Protect provides the tools.
To go with this, Telstra have put together a few tips on how to stay safe online, as well as a few of the ways you can use Device Protect to manage it all in your sleep.
Managing the content your kids can access
They’ve just got back to school after a big break, and tests are already starting to come up that your kids need to study for, but all they want to do is chat to their friends online. Rather than stay on your kids’ backs the entire time, it can be much easier just to control what content they can access online and when they can access it.
With the Parental Controls feature in Device Protect, you can prevent specific categories of websites from being opened, and even set different rules for different computer accounts. You can also limit internet usage through time control on a shared PC at home, so your kids won’t be able to get online until they’re done with their study or homework.
Your Wi-Fi router may have settings that you can log in and set up, but Device Protect takes the concept further than just your Wi-Fi and helps keep your family’s devices safe individually wherever they are. Our Mobile Security for Android devices includes an App Lock for restricting app usage for even more in-depth control.
Did you know only 46% of Australian parents feel confident about dealing with the online risks their children face and 95% want more information about online safety? To mark Safer Internet Day eSafety is hosting a series of webinars for parents and carers this week on Cyberbullying and online drama. They also have a suite of resources available to help you start the chat about being safer online.
Protecting yourself on public WiFi
Free public WiFi can be a saving grace when you don’t have any mobile reception or want to pull out your laptop for some quick work, but you also need to make sure you’re careful around what things you do online. When you connect to a public network, you can never be too sure who runs it, or if anyone else on the network has managed to get in and snoop on other devices.
Because of this, a general rule of thumb is to never use a public WiFi network for any sensitive data – think online banking, making purchases online with your credit card or even signing up to things that reveal a lot of personal information. Try to always do these things on a private network, either on your mobile or on a WiFi network at home or at the place of someone you trust.
However, if you really need to make an emergency bank transfer or want to regularly pop down at your local cafe to work, having a Virtual Private Network (VPN) installed can help mitigate those risks by hiding from the network what you’re doing over the internet.
With Device Protect installed, your VPN will automatically turn on and encrypts your data communication when it detects you’re connected to an unsecured public network, giving you peace of mind without having to fuss around with securing your connection.
Keep safe against cyber threats
As we become more reliant on our devices for shopping, banking and connecting to others, it opens us up to more risks against cyber criminals.
It might be someone pretending to be from your bank or from a social network claiming you need to reset a password or have received a special message you need to log in to see, where they then try to take you to a fake page to steal your information. They could also make attempts to access your devices and information by sending you dodgy links that infect your device with a virus giving them access. Or they could try something even more advanced and sneaky!
But as long as you keep your eyes open and be vigilant with your device protection you should be able to keep yourself safe. Make sure to always pay attention to the URLs of links you click, and that they match the same place you’d usually login. Likewise, check the email address of who’s emailing you to make sure it’s correct and that they’re not using a fake name.
Or let Device Protect do the checking for you, such as automatic monitoring of anything you download to have confidence there are no viruses hiding in the file, getting alerts when a website you enter known to be a bit fishy or even add an extra layer of protection when entering your credit card or bank details.
Keeping your passwords and identity safe
Most of us are guilty of recycling passwords across most of our accounts online, but doing this is really risky – it means that a cyber- criminal only needs to get access to one of your accounts to get into all of them that share the same password. But on the flip side, it can also be quite hard to remember dozens of different passwords across all your accounts to be extra safe – which is the reason most of us don’t bother!
To make this easier, you can use a password manager like the one included in Device Protect to not only store all your passwords, but automatically generate super secure new passwords for you. You can then log into all of your accounts with one tap, so you’ll never need to think about passwords again!
While keeping your passwords protected is important to keep your data secure, it’s also important to make sure you haven’t already been hacked or had your personal information stolen.
Device Protect will also monitor sites on the internet and on the dark web for you to see if your personal information is posted or is for sale anywhere, then alert you if it’s found. That way you can contact the police, cancel your credit cards before anything is spent on them and get new ID documents to minimize the damage done.
Keeping your devices and identity protected online can be a bit scary, but there are simple things you can do as mentioned here to ease your mind and help protect yourself and your family.
If you’re looking for a solution to help protect your family’s devices for you, Device Protect will help keep your digital world safe and secure.
