Set Up a Parental Control for Online Safety 

Have you ever wondered how long your children spend in front of a device without your supervision? Yes, it is time to establish boundaries and, above all, to educate.

The new generations grow by the hand of a device, as technology evolves, our children are marking their steps. Inevitably today’s minors can stay away from technology and thus from the threats posed by the digital world. That is why we explain here the importance of setting limits, educating them, and promoting the importance of online security.

Understand online dangers

It’s about educating our young people about the risks they run in the digital world, don’t be alarmist with them, you can talk about this within their day-to-day tasks. Surfing the internet means a world of potential threats where your children can be easy targets for cybercrimes. We explain the main vulnerabilities that can be found:

1. Phishing: having an email or social media account about them falling into phishing scams, these messages try to manipulate users to get confidential information and download malware. Young people must be alert when receiving emails with perfect messages to be true or when they request to enter their login data in an alarmist way. Phishing emails may seem true; criminals use reliable company names to attack, but with Email addresses that make them doubt. In front of a suspicious email, it is important not to click on any link, not provide information or respond to the email. You can get more information here.
2. Passwords: tell your kids about the importance of having a strong password, which they don’t share with anyone except their parents, as well as the importance of having a password for each account. If criminals manage to get their children’s passwords and use them for all their accounts, they will lose all their sessions in one act. We recommend using a password manager like Avast Passwords to track all your children’s accounts easily.
3. Public Wi-Fi: no matter what your children’s activities during the day, at some point, they will have access to a public Wi-Fi network, which represents a danger. The attackers take advantage of the existence of these open networks to create false Wi-Fi so they can attack the devices. Here is the importance of using a virtual private network (VPN); you can get more information about what a VPN is and how it works.

Let’s talk about Parental Control

Parental control provides parents with monitoring and limitation tools for children when using various platforms and applications. Parents can restrict searches, the type of content displayed, as well as downloads and purchases for minors.

Most of the devices that access our children have parental controls, for example, if your child is in contact with an Android device, the official store Google Play Store account with these the option to limit the content to download or buy. In the case of applications, each application must be configured with the parental controls proper to the platform.

Netflix, for example, allows account holders to create different profiles where the content will be classified according to the previously selected age, even allowing PIN blocking for accounts with access to any content, so parents can make sure that their children will always use the account created specifically for them, without access to the others.

The limits set by parents through parental control settings go beyond blocking certain content from minors. Microsoft has just announced the launch of a new feature to limit the use of applications and platforms such as Windows 10 and Xbox One to children. Parents will have control over their time spent within applications and games, precisely, rather than setting a time limit for the use of the device. You can set a specific time and time per day for your kids to access Netflix or other entertainment applications, so you can limit the time they use on these platforms, without restricting the use of their device.

Protection for All

In addition to the restrictions and limits established through parental controls offered by the different platforms, as well as educating and encouraging about online security, we recommend using full protection against malware, web camera hacking, ransomware, password theft, and more. Avast Premium Security offers full online protection for all your devices and platforms in one place, covering up to 10 devices, so you can protect your family’s desktop, laptop, phone and tablet computers with an Avast account, easy to manage.