The Gift of Online Safety

Help educate your family this holiday.

November is just a few days away and it has me thinking about how much I love the holidays and family. Most of us have the opportunity to see family that we don't see often.

During this time, we have a great opportunity to help educate our families and friends about online safety and protecting their Personally Identifiable Information. This doesn't mean that you need to prepare a slide deck and hold the family hostage, forcing them to attend your TED talk. It just means that you will have many opportunities to help protect them online.

Here are some ways you can help them:

• Find out how they currently handle their passwords and explain the importance of a password manager and Multi-Factor Authentication.

• Explain the dangers of using the same password on multiple sites.

• Educate them on the ways that FREE services, such as reward programs will sell their phone numbers and email addresses.

• Help them evaluate their social media accounts to determine what is public.

• If they received a new device for the holidays, help them set it up securely.

• Show them how easily a bad actor can find their info online and how to reduce their footprint.

• Finally, if you don't have enough time to accomplish all of this, at least assess their situation and offer to follow up with them after the holdays to help them better understand how they can increase their safty online.

You can use your cybersecurity skills as part of your gift to family members. Create some fun holiday coupons for them to redeem cybersecurity assistance.