Every day there are millions of school-age children on the internet and the vast majority of parents are simultaneously worried about what they are doing on the internet but too busy, and not savvy enough to teach their children best practices and this is where cyber security courses come into the importance.
Without educated teachers who know the real-world threats to keep children safe for their lifetime, many of those children will be like sheep surrounded by wolves.
The Federal Trade Commission of the U.S. reports receiving over 2.1 million fraud reports alone in 2020 alone. (Source)
Meanwhile, businesses throughout the world experience millions of dollar’s worth of
expensive data breaches, many of them due to simple computer schemes like human
phishing.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation reports more issues of phishing than any other source of a data breach. (Source)
Phishing
Many phishing schemes are due to individuals, in particular children, either voluntarily or unwittingly providing the would-be fraudster with the necessary information to allow deep insights into their privacy.
Children post addresses, their names, reveal their date of birth, what school they go to and many other seemingly innocent but often severely crippling sources of information.
Child predators, in particular, of which there appear to be millions, find all of this information like an open door to a child or teenager’s life.
And by chatting with anyone, without discrimination, you never know what danger your kids are opening themselves up to.
In addition, adults in general, but kids in particular, are subject to remote phishing.
They willingly click on any link sent to them by a supposed authority source, and may follow up clicking on one of those links with Mom or Dad’s Credit Card to supposedly obtain access to a free game, or a gaming token to better access to the game.
And faster than Superman travels, you can bet that Mom or Dad’s Credit Card has a tone of unwanted or uninvited charges, and may even be sold 30 or 50 times on the dark web before the family catches on.
Issues with Password security
Another avenue of accessing tons of critical information, including vital financial information, is poor password security.
Poor passwords like 12345, abcd1234, and password 123, are very commonly used by millions because they have not been taught the seriousness of cyber attacks and cyber fraud.
Often fraudsters use sophisticated password cracking technology to test hundreds or even thousands of passwords, once they have an opening, and if they are successful at
cracking even one password-protected account, the information they do access may be enough to help them crack a more sensitive and sophisticated account.
In addition to gaining valuable data, there are some fraudsters who love nothing more than to cause havoc with consumers.
One common way to gain control of your computer is to have your kids log onto a website, which in actuality, allows them remote access to the family computer or tablet.
The interaction may seem innocent, until later on when all kinds of problems occur on your computer. Everything from malware that continually pops up certain spurious websites, to hidden programs that actually destroy your computer.
Ransomware
Another common cyber security attack called ransomware is a malicious attack where much or all of your data is encrypted, and you are instructed to pay a fee of $300 or more to retrieve your data.
Although ransomware is usually encountered by large businesses, if you are taught to back up your data, encrypt your data, and use a strong, commercial firewall to keep viruses and malware out.
In actuality, teachers can teach their students, who in turn can educate their parents about the need for computer security and cyber security.
Another vulnerable problem is home WIFI security. In order to keep your data safe, you need a very strong password for your WIFI, which is used by close to 60 percent of people in most industrial countries.
Another thing that students must know is that it is not only computers that are vulnerable to attack but their smartphones.
According to NPR, by the time a child is 11, half of them own a smartphone. (Source)
Children need to be taught that there are literally hundreds of ways to hack a cell phone including simple, supposedly consumer-friendly features like Apple’s find my phone feature.
Since smartphones contain a significant amount of data, and teenagers, in particular, use cell phones up to several hours per day, every day, a savvy Cyber Security educator could spend several hours just teaching his or her charges about cell phone
vulnerability.
Ultimately, an educator can make him or her very valuable to their schools as well as to the students and their parents by learning and then teaching the essence of Cyber Security.