– Pankaj Kumar Singh, managing director, Cambridge Montessori Preschools and Daycare Private Limited.

With the increasing accessibility of the internet, the world has become a global village and everything is available at a single click. While the brighter side of this technological boon has made life easier, on a darker note, technology has intruded into our personal space resulting in cybercrimes. According to recent findings, in 2018 Bangalore registered the most number of cybercrime cases. The Internet is a boon if used as a tool for sourcing information, learning and collaborating but its destructive use can result in various forms of online and even loss of lives.

Youngsters and the internet

Mostly used by youngsters and teenagers, use of this technological bliss calls for strict cyber security to keep an individual’s privacy intact. It is a widely accepted fact that from school to college, the dependency on the Internet not only exposes youngsters to quality content but has also led to a threat to their innocence with the easy availability of explicit content at a single click. While tracking it every moment is not an easy job for parents, the need for cyber security has become inevitable.

The role of parents and teachers

Parents and teachers play a key role which involves providing the right guidance and ensuring discipline. It is important for parents and teachers to guide youngsters on dos and don’ts of Internet usage and developing a healthy disciplined environment so that kids don’t fall prey to negative thoughts and habits. Open discussion about bad habits on the Internet at home and in the classroom can help drive home the message.  Also, guidance on the ways to deal with cybercrime can be helpful to deal with online scams.

Guidance goal

The discipline of cyber security covers everything that can cause harm to humans and data. The major areas covered include application, information, disaster and network. All these aspects have certain techniques that are used for the application of these security systems, which are apt for home, offices and schools as well. The application security involves certain techniques for scanning and processing information that includes- Input Parameter Validation, User/Role Authentication & Authorization, Session Management, and Auditing and Logging. The information security uses techniques like identification, authentication and authorization of user, and cryptography for controlling the harm. At disaster security level risk assessment, establishing priorities, developing recovery strategies are a few parameters that play a key role. And at the network security level, network security components like anti-virus and anti-spyware, Firewall, Intrusion prevention systems (IPS), and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), play a crucial role to secure remote access.

Also read: Innovations in Teaching

Final words

While researchers feel that a lot more needs to be done to make the Internet a safer medium, these basic security parameters should suffice for school kids and youngsters to have a safe and secure exposure to the Internet where they are exposed only to safe and high quality content.

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