Digital Security Resources for Parents

Internet Safety 101 site: Enough Is Enough® understands that Internet safety is a shared responsibility between the public, the Internet industry, and the legal community. However, parents remain the 'first line of defense' in protecting their children against Internet safety dangers. Unfortunately, parents, educators and other caring adults are ill-equipped, uninformed and often overwhelmed when it comes to Internet safety issues, and they need credible outside help. As the nation's leading Internet safety organization since 1994, EIE has responded to this call for action by creating Internet Safety 101SM, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice. Internet Safety 101SM is a widely-renowned resource and teaching series that paints a comprehensive picture of the dangers children encounter online. Through the Internet Safety 101SM program, EIE strives to educate and empower parents, educators and other caring adults with the information they need to effectively protect children from Internet dangers.

 Link: https://internetsafety101.org/parentsguidetosocialmedia

A Parent's Guide to SmartPhone Security: with this guide you can make your smartphone safer for your kids in just 11 easy steps. 

Link: https://internetsafety101.org/objects/Parents_Guide_to_Smart_Phone_Security.pdf

FBI Parents Resources: Get advice and information to help protect your children from dangers lurking in both the online and offline worlds.  

• About Protecting Your Kids: Learn how to Contact The FBI; Report child abductions or abuse
• FBI Child ID App: The FBI's Child ID App provides parents with an easy way to electronically store their children’s information and identity.
• Get advice and information to help protect your children from dangers lurking in both the online and offline worlds.

Link: https://www.fbi.gov/resources/parents

KidsHealth - Internet Safety Guide: The Internet can be wonderful for kids. They can use it to research school reports, communicate with teachers and other kids, and play interactive games.
But online access also comes with risks, like inappropriate content, cyberbullying, and online predators. Using apps and websites where kids interact, predators may pose as a child or teen looking to make a new friend. They might prod the child to exchange personal information, such as address and phone number, or encourage kids to call them, seeing their phone number via caller ID.

Link: https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/net-safety.html

Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI): Need help talking with your kids about online safety? Want to know about parental controls? Looking for a simple set of rules to use with your children? FOSI’s Good Digital Parenting provides you with videos, tip sheets, resources, blogs, and more.

Link: https://www.fosi.org/good-digital-parenting/

National Cyber Security Alliance/Stay Safe Online: Here are helpful links from the National Cyber Security Alliance's sponsors, partners and friends to help you and your friends and family be safer and more secure online.

Link: https://staysafeonline.org/stay-safe-online/related-links/

Tom's Guide: Best Parental Control Apps 2019: The best parental-control apps for smartphones can help you track your kids, see whom they are communicating with, block kids from viewing objectionable or dangerous websites, and even help kids understand the value of limits while preventing them from accessing adult content or communicating with strangers.

Link: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-parental-control-apps,review-2258.html

PCMag.com - The Best Tracking Devices for Kids: Kids get lost. GPS and Bluetooth trackers can help find them and keep them safe. With the help of our own children, we've tested clips, smartwatches, and wearables to determine what type works best and which one is right for you.

Link: https://www.pcmag.com/roundup/362044/the-best-tracking-devices-for-kids

OpenDNS - Basic Web Filtering and Protection: OpenDNS is the name of a Domain Name System (DNS) service as well as of the company that provides that service. The OpenDNS service extends the DNS by incorporating features such as content filtering and phishing protection.  Get OpenDNS Family Shield

Link: https://www.opendns.com/setupguide/#familyshield

Tip: Create a Boot CD or USB Drive to Save Your System

There have been dozens of times over the years where I’ve had to boot a dead system or break into a suspect’s system to recover data or restore the functionality of a system.  It used to be pretty tough – often I had to remove the hard disk and mount it on another system to do this.  Now, it’s much easier.  Today there are several tools that will allow you to create a Boot CD or USB drive that you can insert into a system and boot the computer without having to boot off of the hard drive.  The plus is, if the system has a virus or malfunction, you are not running off of the infected hard drive – but off of the CD or USB drive.  You also keep from modifying the contents of the hard disk so that you can maintain a forensic path to data discovery.  There are two boot CD’s and USB Drives that I carry with me today:

The first one is an Ultimate Boot CD I created with BartPE that has your basic disk imaging, virus scanning, and other operating system tools installed on it.  BartPE allows a user to boot Windows, even if a hardware or software fault has disabled the installed operating systems on the internal hard drive — for instance, to recover files. It can also be used to scan for and remove rootkits, viruses and spyware (that have infected boot files), or to reset a lost administrator password.  Here’s a tutorial on installing BartPE



The second one is a Knoppix based CD that has tons of capabilities for data retrieval, system interrogation, and a number of tools that will allow me to perform a security check of the network I’m in.  The particular CD I use is the BackTrack live CD distribution.  It contains over 300 tools for network penetration testing (both wired and wireless), system imaging, remote network monitoring, packet capturing (like Network Miner), and forensic system analysis.  It is very useful and the interface is easier than I was expecting.  Here’s a video on installing BackTrack onto a USB thumb drive.

Here's an intro video to Backtrack


I find these tools very useful and use them often to solve all sorts of problems.  I always find that I am creating new ones because I keep giving them away.