Empowering YOU While Keeping You Safe
Presenter: Alexandra Brown, senior consultant in the advisory services, Ernst & Young LLP
TAKEAWAYS:
In a world of oversharing with social media, Brown recommends following The Dinner Rule: “If you wouldn’t invite them into your home, do not have them on your social media.”
Information is power, money, safety and security. Protect yours. The C.I.A. of information is it needs to be confidential, maintain the integrity of how it was originally published and it needs to be available.
Even if you post something online and delete it, it never fully disappears (the “digital tattoo”). Think before you post anything on social media. Online photos now will exist for generations. “We have become a generation of content producers. Privacy as you know it no longer exists.” When you post a photo of your child, think about if it could come back to bite them in 10 years, or when they’re looking for a job. Will your social media post affect or hurt them in some way?
Secret apps also are prevalent these days, such as Cover Me, Calculator Photo Apps and Omegle. Monitor your child’s technology closely. Encourage your child to write in a journal using a pen and paper rather than posting their feelings online. Brown does not give her children privacy with technology, but gives them total privacy with their pen and paper journals. “They are one click from anyone in this world; most children are not equipped with the maturity to handle that.”
To avoid ransomware, which prevents a victim from accessing critical data and system function until a fee is paid to the attackers, get in the habit of once a month downloading everything on your computer to an external hard drive and then unplug the hard drive until your next update.
Consider using passphrases instead of passwords. “Criminals are smart, don’t make it easy for them.” A passphrase, for example, could be derived from saying “I like Starbucks at 2 p.m.” The passphrase is shortened to ILoveSB@2p. That’s a strong password, and very hard to hack into. “Passwords are the key to your kingdom. Protect those.”
For more information, visit Facebook.com/OPSECforFamilies.
