Tips to Protect Your Computer and Family Online #ESETprotects

The back to school excitement has spilled over to our dinner hours, chattering nonstop about their day and new lockers they were awarded. It’s a big deal. Among the happiness, homework assignments and parade of permission slips already making their way home, I was quickly reminded of the online safety of my children, in technology driven environments at school and home.

Being a technology adapted family, we are plugged in a lot throughout the week as it is.  My school kids are in grades 6, 7 and 10 this year which equates to more homework and online research and even more reasons to worry. With the internet, it’s easy access to predators and websites not intended for children. As much as I’ve discussed the dangers and check to ensure my children are abiding by our rules of the internet, I don’t always have the time to watch over them closely nor do I trust that to be enough.

Protecting Your Children Online

I was given the opportunity to the new ESET Smart Security 6 software as an added online security tool to protect my family while online.  As busy as I’ve been with all the craziness of back to school, I’m embarrassed to say online security had almost slipped my mind.  ESET covers all the bases for families looking to protect their network of computers and users and the flexible parental controls for ease of mind.

ESET Smart Security 6 is an all-in-one Internet Security solution with new Anti-theft feature that locates your missing laptop and gives you tools to help recover it. Personal Firewall and Anti-Phishing keep your data safe from identity theft and other scams.

The software was very easy to install; with a few clicks I was quickly walked through the installation wizard and within minutes my computer was scanned for viruses and set up to protect the users as strict or as loose as I preferred, depending on each user.

Parental Controls

I was impressed by the ESET parental controls security feature. By simply adding users, one for each child, I could easily set the age and automatically website restrictions were set based on those ages.  My 11 & 12 year old girls are not allowed to use Facebook but I could edit the restrictions to suit my family, either allowing or restricting by category. Additionally, I could add specific websites that I did not want my children access to the blocked and allowed website control tab for extra security.

Anti-Theft Security

Often I take my laptop along my travels and haven’t thought too much about it but I have had friends who have had their laptops stolen, swept right out from underneath them in one instance.  ESET has included the Anti-Theft feature to their security software to help you locate and retrieve your laptop in the event of a theft.  When I set up this feature I was amazed that at the click of the “My device is missing” button, I could actually pinpoint the exact location of my laptop, have screenshots taken of the thief using my laptop via my webcam and, if I wanted, send the thief a message to be displayed on the screen of the laptop. Wouldn’t that be a shock.

Do you know what your kids get up to online? Most times I think of myself as technology savvy, I realize my children probably know more than I do but they still need to be protected from online dangers.

1. Educate your children – Children and young people spend huge amounts of time online and may not be aware of the dangers, spend some time with them to outline the risks and how to avoid them.
2. Educate yourself – ESET provides Cyber Security Education training as part of their product, that teaches you and your entire family how to defend against cyber threats, scams and hackers.
3. Set parental controls on browsers, PCs and phones Windows PCs and Macs have parental controls built into the operating system – you can find them in the Settings or Control Panel. 
4. Consider additional software to provide enhanced parental controls like blocking entire categories of website, like ESET Smart Security 6 for Windows.

Discount

ESET Smart Security received the well-known PTPA (Parent Tested Parent Approved) Seal of Approval, a highly regarded award seal in North America. To find out more head over to the ESET Facebook Page or follow them on Twitter.

For a limited time, receive 15% off the purchase of ESET Smart Security 6, the first step to online security for your family.