Safer Internet Day: Together how we can make the Internet Safer

The internet is everywhere in the modern world, used in personal, professional, and educational settings. Children learn how to operate a touch screen before they can talk, and older children enjoy various games and educational materials at their fingertips. But with the ubiquity of the internet comes the ubiquity of security concerns and cyber threats. These threats led to the development of Safer Internet Day, a campaign designed to encourage everybody – from kids to parents to educators – to play their part in creating a better internet.

Here is the importance of this initiative and best practices for staying safe online.

What is Safer Internet Day?

Held annually in early February, Safer Internet Day is a global event coordinated by the Insafe/INHOPE Network in Brussels with the European Commission’s support. The goal of Safer Internet Day is to create a safer and better internet by raising awareness of how to use technology responsibly and respectfully.

Why is Safer Internet Day Important?

As of 2019, over 85% of people living in developed countries used the internet making them potential victims of cybercrimes, including identify theft, financial theft, intellectual property violations, malware, and malicious social engineering. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 2019 also saw a peak of 3.2 million identity theft reports, most of which occurred due to internet use and nearly a quarter of which resulted in financial loss. In other words, cybercrime can cause all sorts of damage, meaning it’s essential for everyone who uses the internet to protect themselves, their data, and any devices they might have access to, whether at home, school, or work. Safer Internet Day promotes awareness of these potential threats and distributes resources and information that helps people engage in safer online practices.

Safer Internet Tips

Safer Internet Day provides an opportunity to reflect on your internet usage and safety practices. Here we provide a list of tips to help you get started:

Educate and Encourage Positive Change

• Instruct your family and friends on keeping their personally identifiable information (PII) private online by encouraging them not to share their real names with strangers or give out information about where they live.
• Establish clear online rules for children and teens to follow; this could include creating lists of approved websites and applications or requiring parental approval for certain activities.
• Ensure everyone in the family understands the importance of strong passwords, how to create them, and why they should not share those passwords with anyone else. Other password best practices include making a different password for each account, avoiding common phrases, and including numbers and special characters.
• Talk to your family about media literacy and how to spot unauthentic sources and potential scams.
• Discuss what phishing attempts are and how to identify them. Make it clear that no one should click on a suspect link or open unexpected attachments.
• Encourage children and teens to come to a trusted adult if they are unsure about something they find on the internet or have concerns about a particular website or interaction.

Get Ahead of Potential Threats

• Review apps that you and your family use and discuss any safety concerns about usage.
• Install proper anti-virus software and other security features such as parental controls on your devices to prevent threats.
• Leverage VPN technology in order to establish online anonymity and enhance security when browsing on public networks.
• Monitor that online purchases are made from secure sites. Recent threat research shows that ecommerce platforms are often targeted by cybercriminals.

How organizations can make the Internet Safer

• Train People – The vast majority of attacks still happen because someone clicks on a malicious link. Employees need to be continually educated on creating strong passwords, how to identify malicious URLs and email sources, and to not open or click on unfamiliar or unexpected email messages, links, or attachments. This should then be augmented with access management policies, including a zero trust policy, and intent-based segmentation so in the event of an incident, an attack is limited to a specific segment of the network.
• Implement Processes – Incident response plans need to include regular backups that are stored off-network, regular testing of those backups, and system restoration drills to ensure everyone knows their role so systems can be restored as quickly as possible.IT teams must always know what assets are online, where those assets are, and then be able to prioritize their access to and consumption of resources based on which are most business-critical.
• Deploy Technology – Security tools need to be chosen based on their ability to be integrated together and cross-automated so they can gather, share, correlate, and consume threat intelligence across the entire distributed network in real time.

Creating an online presence can open the door for various cyberthreats, from social engineering attacks to data breaches. By taking the appropriate steps and following certain best practices, everyone can create an internet that is more secure for everybody, from children to adults.

By Rajesh Maurya, Regional Vice President, India and SAARC, Fortinet