Back to School

As kids head back to school, it's essential to prioritize online safety!

As students head back to school, we want to remind you the importance of sharing information on how to stay protected in our digital world.

There are online protections for children provided by Federal law and regulations, such as the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). CIPA aims to protect children from obscene and harmful content on the internet.

Schools and libraries also protect our students from outside threats, but like state government employees and contractors, we all are responsible for cyber security awareness.

Protect Your Personal Information

Personal information is information that can be used to identify you or your accounts. Items like name, address, phone number, address, username, passwords, and your date of birth.  Photos are considered personal information.  If anyone is asking for this information, stop talking with them and let your parent(s) or guardian know.

Think Before You Click

Just like the old warning “stranger, danger” or the new warning “clever never goes”, a click online could have the same effect in the digital world.  Don’t click on links in emails or in text messages from people you don’t know.  Even If someone you think you know requests something that feels out of normal, it is okay to question the request.  Hackers love to pretend to be someone else to get information from you.

Use Strong Passwords

As hackers get more creative and intuitive, passwords are starting to get longer and longer, thus harder to remember.  To add complexity to the password, it is recommended that users create phrases and substitute numbers or special characters for letters. Try not to use common phrases.  They need to be unique to the application.  Some recommendations include using a password manager.  For information on password managers, see the link below.

Use Multifactor Authentication

Multifactor authentication is a layered approach to securing data and applications where a system requires the user to present a combination of two or more credentials to verify a user’s identity for login. You can tell it has multi factor authentication when you supply the password, and the application sends you a code to your phone (using your supplied phone number) or your computer (using your email address).  This code needs to be entered into the application before it allows you in.  You can enable the multifactor authentication feature in the settings of the application.

Cybersecurity for K12-Education

Find information here on the need for cybersecurity in our education systems.