FORT GORDON, Ga. (Oct. 17, 2014) - Fort Gordon invited parents and the post community to the program, "Securing Your Children From Cyber Criminals" held Oct. 7 at Signal Theater. It is part of the many activities and trainings offered this month, which is Army Cyber Security Month. SANS Securing The Human sponsored the program.
Lance Spitzner of the SANS Institute gave tips on keeping children and teens safe on the Internet and Brian Ozden of the FBI presented actual cases, of cybercrime perpetrated in the Central Savannah River Area.
"As parents, you are facing challenges no other parent has faced in the history of parenting," Spitzner said. "Our kids know the technology and the Internet better than we do."
"I feel technology is an enabler," he added. "It is how kids use social networking, as well as, get an education."
"We want our children to grow up and enable or leverage technology," Spitzner explained. "And we also want to help guide them on how to do this safely."
As a father of three children, ages 4, 10, and 13, Spitzner, is always asking his children about the latest technology they are using. "I sit down and have them walk me through it," he explained. "It's beneficial because you are learning and actually see the technology your children are using. This level of conversation facilitates dialogue between us."
"Recently, I sent my 13-year-old son an email and he never replied," Spitzner said. "I asked him about it and he said, 'Dad, I never use email.'"
He asked the kids in the audience what they were using and many of them said, "We text and use Instagram."
"Many of you want to know how to secure our children's computers," he said. "Five years ago, that might have been possible, but today it is more than the computers that need securing. Children are using smartphones, the tablets, and the mobile devices. And let's not forget the X-boxes, Nintendo, and the Wii."
"What happens when they go to their friend's house, the library, and school?" Spitzner questioned the parents. "You don't have control over the computers there. My 13-year-old son has administrative rights on his grandmother's computer, because she does not know anything about computers."
"I am not trying to scare you off the Internet," he said. "I just want all of you to understand the threats out there and how you can better defend against them."
The top three risks young people face on the Internet today, according to Spitzner, is strangers and criminals, friends and themselves.
"Our children face the same threats as we did growing up, but online criminals can target more people, and anonymously," Spitzner warned. "Your children can easily become victims of extortion, fraud, identify theft, and predators."
Bullying has always existed, but today it's on a much larger scale. Young people have taken their own lives because of the cruelty of other preteens and teens in their school. "It's quite possible your child is being bullied on the Internet and you don't know about it or who is doing it," he said. "The bully can be much more public. They can create a Facebook page with your child's photo and post all sorts of malicious content."
"It is scary," Spitzner said. "It is hard to control and it is hard to find anyone to help you."
"What young people fail to realize is all that material they publish about themselves, online, can hurt them when they apply to the universities and hiring companies," he explained. "It's quite common during background checks that social media sites are examined. You want to ensure your children don't impact their future lives by what they post on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or one of the other social media sites. As we all know, what gets posted on the Internet stays there."
The best way to deal with these situations is by talking with your children and educating them. "As kids get older, you have less control," Spitzner warned. "But there are a few things you can do."
• Have a computer dedicated just for the children.
• Keep it updated and patched
• Have active anti-virus on it.
• Enable the firewall.
• Use standard accounts.
• Have your children be responsible for keeping the computer up to date and secure.
• Keep the computer and printer in a public area in your home.
"You cannot keep mobile devices in a central location, but at our house, we have a central charging station," Spitzner said. "That is where all the kids put their mobile devices so I know they are not gaming at 2 o'clock in the morning during a school day."
Spitzner recommends posting computer rules next to the computer. Have the children review and agree to the rules. It is helpful and consensus building to have them come up with some of the rules, too. Remember, the rules may need to be changed or updated over time.
Spitzner talked about filtering and monitoring. "Filtering allows you to control what activity you children can and cannot do," he said. "Monitoring is passive, it only logs and reports what your children were doing."
Spitzner pointed out filtering is most effective for younger children. It prevents them from accidentally accessing harmful content. "As children get older, it is easier to bypass the filtering system and more difficult to filter certain activities, such as YouTube or Facebook," he explained.
During the program, Spitzner mentioned OpenDNS, which is a free service, and an excellent source for filtering website activity and protecting against malicious sites. However, he pointed out, it is not good for reporting where your kids have been on the Internet. Go to www.opendns.com to find out more information about this filter program.
Other good filters are the Norton Online Family and NetNanny. More information can be found at onlinefamily.norton.com/familysafety and www.netnanny.com.
During the questions and answer session of the program, Ozden and Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent, Charles Kicklighter, and FBI agent, Brian Jones, talked about actual cases involving the Internet.
One of those attending the program, Col. Michael Brownfield, director of the U.S. Army Capabilities Development Integration Directorate Experimentation Division and the Network Battle Lab at Fort Gordon, who is the father of six children said, "They presented a real approach on how to protect your family against cyber criminals."
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