How to protect children online

It's one of the most significant challenges facing parents today. As the world becomes smaller and the ability to access information and people continues to accelerate, how do parents protect their children?

Securing your Network

Your home network is the connective tissue that binds the computers your children use, your printers and other devices, and the Internet. Keeping it secure is not difficult but does require some effort and thought.

Let’s start with the wireless network.
There are a few technical terms that are worth understanding so that you can make decisions about the options you set.

  1. SSID The name of the wireless network
  2. WEP A type of wireless network encryption that is no longer favoured as it has been broken by hackers.
  3. WPA A type of wireless network encryption that is commonly used and is considered to be secure. There are two versions; WPA and WPA2. WPA2 has superseded WPA and is the one you should set for your network.
  4. If you're using a router that was supplied by your ISP then it should already be configured in a reasonably secure state. However, we'd recommend making the following changes.

1. Change the default password for the administrator account
Connect to the router and log in as the administrator for the device. If you're not sure how to do this, your ISP or router vendor should have provided instructions.
Follow the instructions to change the default password and, if possible, the username. Make sure you keep a record of that information in a secure place.

2. Change the name and password for the wireless network
While you're in the settings for the router, locate the options for the wireless network.

  • Change the name of the wireless network (it's usually called the SSID) to something you like (it can be almost any combination of letters, numbers and symbols)
  • Change the password to something you'll remember but isn’t easily guessed. A good way to do this is to not use a word but a short phrase. Something like "getyourownpassword" works!

3. Some Advanced Network Options
You'll most likely see an option that lets you hide the SSID so that it's not broadcast. In our view, it's not worth bothering with. If you get a new computer, or have a visitor over that you will allow access to the network, this makes it harder to connect the device. Also, the security benefit is negligible. If someone wants to hack your network, the SSID, even if not broadcast, can be easily gleaned as when a device connects to the network, it's sent as unencrypted data even if you're using WPA2.

You'll also see an option for MAC address filtering. This allows you to create a white-list of devices that are allowed to connect to your network. Any computer that isn’t listed won’t be able to connect. This adds management overhead in a home situation and doesn't add a significant security benefit.

4. Firewalls
The vast majority of routers include a firewall function. A firewall is a device or computer program that restricts access to a computer or network unless specific criteria are met.

Think of a firewall being like a wall covered with small doors. In security-speak, those doors are called ports. Each port is designed to only allow specific network traffic through. For example, Port 80 is regular web browsing traffic. Port 443 is for secure web traffic.

If all the ports are open, then bad guys can bombard your computers with all sorts of traffic. But a firewall closes all the ports, only opening the ones you specifically need.

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