ESET Middle East, a leader in proactive protection against cyber-threats, has urged parents to educate children on cyber thieves and paedophiles.

With majority of schools closing this summer, children will be spending a major chunk of their time online. The internet, although resourceful, can be the biggest threat to personal space where a simple click can lead to the child to be a substance of ridicule/ abuse, said an ESET statement.

“As the use of the internet escalates it is imperative that parents explain to their children the dangers of giving too much information online. In addition, viruses can accidentally download to a hard drive, where passwords, personal files and folders copied, and keystrokes could be logged and your information effectively compromised by identity thieves,” it said.

Aji Joseph, general manager ESET Middle East cautions: “Parents should monitor their kid’s internet usage so that they can protect their children from predators and immoral characters lurking about freely online. A third of all Internet sites in the world involve adult material, and parents need to be aware of the files their children are downloading. Many children especially teens have no idea how today's actions have the ability to impact the rest of their lives.”

ESET gives some safety rules for parents as well as teachers; to help children steer away from any potential dangers:
• Assign your child a username – children should have their own account on a PC/laptop.
• Teach them never to share any confidential information or personal pictures over the internet
• Not to reply to harassment / unknown messages
• Make sure web camera is not connected while not in use
• Parents and teachers should have an open dialogue / communication about the potential dangers of the internet
• Check your kids’ social networking configuration
• As in real life, the rule of thumb is trust only real friends in social networking sites like Facebook. Beware of bogus friends.
• Get to know your kids’ online habits and regularly monitor their browsing records
• Use good parental control software to prevent kids from accessing offensive or undesirable websites.
• Regularly update your computer's operating system and applications including antivirus and parental control software.

ESET offers proactive security solutions that help parents ensure a safe cyber experience for their child, it said.

Parents can take advantage of the advanced parental control feature in ESET Smart Security that boasts three major features which can help protect their children. It includes customizable user roles, web content filtering and activity logging. This helps parents to block web pages, restrict access by category and configure user roles for quick selection. Activity logging gives a detailed log of each session, the statement said. – TradeArabia News Service