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Online Gaming Risks and Kids: What to Know and How to Protect Them

Reading Time: ~ 4 min.

Online games aren’t new. Consumers have been playing them since as early as 1960. However, the market is evolving—games that used to require the computing power of dedicated desktops can now be powered by smartphones, and online gaming participation has skyrocketed. This unfortunately means that the dangers of online gaming have evolved as well. We’ve examined the top threats that parents need to know about to keep their kids safe while gaming online.

Check out our Antivirus protection for PC gaming without impact on your gameplay.

Online Bullying and Harassment

A recent study shows that 65% of players who participate in online gaming have been harassed; a statistic that does not bode well for underage gamers. Your first instinct may be to try to prevent your child from participating in online gaming altogether, but this may cause them to sneak playing time without your knowledge. A stronger choice would be to talk with your kids and prepare them for the types of negative behavior they may experience online, and to make sure they know they can come to you if they are being harassed. It’s also important to explain the impact that online bullying can have on others, and to set firm consequences if you catch your child participating in harassment or abusive language. Regulating the use of headsets can help prevent both your child’s exposure to and participation in online harassment.

Two types of harassment specific to online experiences go a step beyond what you would expect from online bullying: doxxing and swatting. Doxxing is when one or more online participants seek personal, identifying information on a particular user for blackmail or intimidation purposes. Doxxing can often lead to the release of real names, phone numbers, home addresses, employer information, and more. Swatting is a form of harassment that uses doxxing techniques to create an actual, tangible threat. A harasser will call in a threat to a doxxed user’s local law enforcement, often claiming there is a kidnapping or hostage situation at the victim’s address. This may bring a large SWAT response unit to descend upon the address.

Keeping an open line of communication about your kid’s gaming experiences is critical. Swatting can happen over seemingly innocuous events. One of the most notorious examples followed a dispute over a $1.50 bet in “Call of Duty: WWII.”

Pro tip: one is only vulnerable to doxxing and swatting if a harasser can link identifying information back to the targeted gamer. Educating your kids on digital privacy best practices is one of the strongest security measures you can take against these forms of online harassment.

Viruses and Malware

As with almost every digital experience, you’ll find specific cybersecurity threats associated with the online gaming landscape. We asked Tyler Moffitt, Webroot security analyst, for his thoughts on the malware threats associated with online gaming. 

“The thing kids should really watch out for with games is the temptation to cheat,” explains Moffit. “In popular games like Fortnite and PUBG, ‘aimbots’ are very common, as they allow the player to get headshots they normally wouldn’t be able to make. However, many of the aimbots that kids download from forums are packed with malware—usually  ransomware or info-stealing Trojans. What’s worse: a lot of young gamers also don’t run antivirus because they think it will make the game slower.”

The bottom line: cheating at online games isn’t just ethically icky, it makes you a proven target for hackers. Make sure your kids know the real cost of “free” cheats.

Phishing Scams and Account Takeovers

Where there’s money, there are scammers. With more than 1 billion gamers actively spending money not just on games, but in games, it’s no surprise that phishing scams have become commonplace in gaming communities. One of the most prevalent phishing tactics in gaming: account takeovers are often prompted by a risky link click on a gaming forum, or a compromised account sending out phishing links to other users. Once the hacker has control of the account, they can run up fraudulent charges to any attached credit cards or, in some cases, sell the compromised account (particularly if it contains valuable items or character skins). Young gamers are especially at risk for these hacks. In these cases, chances are that any credit cards attached to gaming accounts belong to you, not your kids, so young gamers aren’t going to notice who’s spending your hard-earned funds.

Keeping Your Kids Safe

You’ll find plenty of tools to help your kids stay secure while gaming. Reliable antivirus software installed and up-to-date on all of your household smart devices can protect your family from malicious software. Additionally, wrapping your household web traffic in the secure encryption of a trusted VPN could reduce doxxing potential. But your kids will only find true security through digital literacy. Start conversations with them not just about online bullying, but about recognizing cybersecurity threats and phishing scams. If you’re having a hard time connecting with them over the threat, remind them that it’s not just your wallet on the line. Account takeovers are now all too common, and no kid wants to see their Fortnite skins sold for a stranger’s profit. Also, always be sure to exercise caution in giving out information on the internet. Even small, seemingly irrelevant pieces of information could be used to pull up Facebook or other user account pages to grab even more personal data.

To keep your kids educated about online gaming risks, it’s important to educate yourself as well. Have a question we didn’t cover here? Ask the Webroot community.

The post Online Gaming Risks and Kids: What to Know and How to Protect Them appeared first on Webroot Blog.

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STEM for Kids: Why Does it Matter?

Reading Time: ~ 3 min.

You have probably seen or heard news reports about STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), and how important STEM jobs are for the economy; or maybe you’ve heard reports on schools that are making strides to improve their STEM programs for kids. It’s important for parents with school-aged children to fully understand what a STEM education is and why access to STEM learning resources is so critical.  

STEM education, which is rooted in a strong foundation in the disciplines of science and math, is traditionally a part of any student’s curriculum. But a truly effective STEM education focuses on the interdisciplinary layering of these disciplines into the larger educational picture. When applied appropriately, effective STEM learning is integrated across subject areas, which taps into a child’s natural curiosity, providing them with an outlet for their creative energy. 

Check out some more tips on what you can do to help create the STEM leaders of tomorrow.

Why is STEM important for kids?

STEM isn’t just a buzzword acronym. The data shows a real impact when a child is exposed to STEM activities or programs. Here are just a few of ways kids are benefiting from STEM learning. 

  • College Readiness: A recent study from ACT shows that teenagers with an expressed interest in STEM display significantly higher levels of college readiness than their uninterested cohort.  
  • Workforce Opportunity: Humanity will always need engineers, and STEM workforce growth will always reflect that need. Since 1990, STEM employment has  grown by nearly 80%, and the sector expects to see an additional 8.9% in growth before 2024. Even better, STEM workers earn around 26% higher salaries than others. Even if they don’t end up working in a traditionally STEM-focused field, people with STEM degrees tend to earn more on average across the board. 
  • American Infrastructure: It’s no secret that we have a shortage of STEM workers in the United States. In fact, of the 970,532 STEM-interested students polled in the ACT survey, only 5,839 indicated a plan to pursue a degree in a STEM field. With less than one percent of STEM-interested students pursuing the field, this leaves the future of our country’s digital infrastructure in potential peril. Consider this: China has a ratio of roughly one STEM grad for every 293 citizens, while the United States has one STEM grad for every 573 citizens. As it stands, we have roughly half the engineering power as our main economic rival, with no sign of bridging the gap. 

Getting kids involved in STEM

STEM may seem intimidating to introduce to a young child, but it’s such a diverse field in which you can find several points of entry. Many existing extracurricular activities have already integrated STEM initiatives. One notable example is the Girl Scouts of America’s pledge to bring 2.5 million young women into the STEM pipeline by infusing their existing programs with STEM education projects. Many local and national programs are also focused on engaging children in STEM. If you’re having trouble finding such programs in your area, don’t forget the valuable resource that is your local library. They can often help you find a few relevant activities around town. 

STEM at Home

You don’t have to wait for a STEM program to begin encouraging your child’s curiosity. Many simple, safe, and fun STEM projects can be worked on at home, like fun games or building toys (like creating magnetic slime or the engineering of simple robots). Finding at-home STEM activities to do with your child is an excellent first step toward giving them a solid foundation in STEM principles and nurturing their interest. 

Creating a new generation of scientists, engineers, and inventors is important for all of us. Here at Webroot, we partnered with the Air Force Association’s CyberPatriot program to engage with Denver-area students around the topics of STEM and cybersecurity awareness, and we’re continuing thisinitiative again this year in honor of National Cyber Security Awareness Month in October. By engagingwith students in our community, we hope to plant the seeds that will encourage students to explore future opportunities in cybersecurity and IT.  

How are you applying STEM education to your child’s life? Find ways to get involved in National CyberSecurity Awareness Month here. 

The post STEM for Kids: Why Does it Matter? appeared first on Webroot Blog.

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Keeping Your Vehicle Secure Against Smart Car Hacks

Reading Time: ~ 3 min.

An unfortunate reality of all smart devices is that, the smarter they get, and the more integrated into our lives they become, the more devastating a security breach can be. Smart cars are no exception. On the contrary, they come with their own specific set of vulnerabilities. Following high-profile incidents like the infamous Jeep hack, it’s more important than ever that smart car owners familiarize themselves with their inherent vulnerabilities. It may even save lives.

Want smart device shopping tips? Make sure your security isn’t sacrificed for convenience.

Smart Car Vulnerabilities

At a recent hacking competition, two competitors were able to exploit a flaw in the Tesla Model 3 browser system and compromise the car’s firmware. While the reported “Tesla hack” made waves in the industry, it actually isn’t even one of the most common vulnerabilities smart car owners should look out for. These, easier to exploit, vulnerabilities may be more relevant to the average owner.

Car alarms, particularly aftermarket car alarms, are one of the largest culprits in smart car security breaches. A recent study found that at least three million vehicles are currently at risk due to insecure smart alarms. By exploiting insecure direct object reference (IDORS) issues within the alarm’s software, hackers can track the vehicle’s GPS location, disable the alarm, unlock doors, and in some cases even kill the engine while it is being used.

Key fobs are often used by hackers to gain physical access to a vehicle. By using a relay attack, criminals are able to capture a key fob’s specific signal with an RFID receiver and use it to unlock the car. This high-tech version of a duplicate key comes with a decidedly low-tech solution: Covering your key fob in aluminum foil will prevent the signal from being skimmed.

On-Board diagnostic ports are legally required for all vehicles manufactured after 1996 in the United States. Traditionally used by mechanics, the on-board diagnostics-II (OBD-II) port allows direct communication with your vehicle’s computer. Because the OBD-II port bypasses all security measures to provide direct access to the vehicle’s computer for maintenance, it provides particularly tempting backdoor access for hackers.

Protecting Your Smart Car from a Cybersecurity Breach

Precautions should always be taken after buying a new smart device, and a smart car is no exception. Here are the best ways to protect your family from a smart car hack.

Update your car’s firmware and keep it that way. Do not skip an update because you don’t think it’s important or it will take too much time. Car manufacturers are constantly testing and updating vehicle software systems to keep their customers safe—and their brand name out of the news. Signing up for vehicle manufacturer recalls and software patches will help you stay on top of these updates.

Disable unused smart services. Any and all of your car’s connectivity ports that you do not use should be turned off, if not altogether disabled. This means that if you don’t use your car’s Bluetooth connectivity, deactivate it. Removing these access points will make your car less exposed to hacks.

Don’t be a beta tester. We all want the newest and hottest technologies, but that doesn’t keep us at our most secure. Make sure that you’re purchasing a vehicle with technology that has been field tested for a few years, allowing time for any vulnerabilities to be exposed. Cutting-edge technologies are good. But bleeding edge? Not so much.

Ask questions when buying your vehicle and don’t be afraid to get technical. Ask the dealer or manufacturer which systems can be operated remotely, which features are networked together, and how those gateways are secured. If you’re not comfortable with the answers, take your money elsewhere.

Advocate for your security. As smart cars become so smart that they begin to drive themselves, consumers must demand that manufacturers provide better security for autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles.

Only use a trusted mechanic and be mindful of who you grant access to your car. OBD-II ports are vulnerable but necessary, so skipping the valet may save you a costly automotive headache down the line.

Keep the Conversation Going

As our cars get smarter, their vulnerabilities will change. Check back here to keep yourself updated on the newest trends in smart car technologies, and stay ahead of any potential threats.

The post Keeping Your Vehicle Secure Against Smart Car Hacks appeared first on Webroot Blog.

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Thoughtful Design in the Age of Cybersecurity AI

Reading Time: ~ 3 min.

AI and machine learning offer tremendous promise for humanity in terms of helping us make sense of Big Data. But, while the processing power of these tools is integral for understanding trends and predicting threats, it’s not sufficient on its own.

Thoughtful design of threat intelligence—design that accounts for the ultimate needs of its consumers—is essential too. There are three areas where thoughtful design of AI for cybersecurity increases overall utility for its end users.

Designing where your data comes from

To set the process of machine learning in motion, data scientists rely on robust data sets they can use to train models that deduce patterns. If your data is siloed, it relies on a single community of endpoints or is made up only of data gathered from sensors like honeypots and crawlers. There are bound to be gaps in the resultant threat intelligence.

A diverse set of real-world endpoints is essential to achieve actionable threat intelligence. For one thing, machine learning models can be prone to picking up biases if exposed to either too much of a particular threat or too narrow of a user base. That may make the model adept at discovering one type of threat, but not so great at noticing others. Well-rounded, globally-sourced data provides the most accurate picture of threat trends.

Another significant reason real-world endpoints are essential is that some malware excels at evading traditional crawling mechanisms. This is especially common for phishing sites targeting specific geos or user environments, as well as for malware executables. Phishing sites can hide their malicious content from crawlers, and malware can appear benign or sit on a user’s endpoint for extended periods of time without taking an action.

Designing how to illustrate data’s context

Historical trends help to gauge future measurements, so designing threat intelligence that accounts for context is essential. Take a major website like www.google.com for example. Historical threat intelligence signals it’s been benign for years, leading to the conclusion that its owners have put solid security practices in place and are committed to not letting it become a vector for bad actors. On the other hand, if we look at a domain that was only very recently registered or has a long history of presenting a threat, there’s a greater chance it will behave negatively in the future. 

Illustrating this type of information in a useful way can take the form of a reputation score. Since predictions about a data object’s future actions—whether it be a URL, file, or mobile app—are based on probability, reputation scores can help determine the probability that an object may become a future threat, helping organizations determine the level of risk they are comfortable with and set their policies accordingly.

For more information on why context is critical to actionable threat intelligence, click here.

Designing how you classify and apply the data

Finally, how a threat intelligence provider classifies data and the options they offer partners and users in terms of how to apply it can greatly increase its utility. Protecting networks, homes, and devices from internet threats is one thing, and certainly desirable for any threat intelligence feed, but that’s far from all it can do.

Technology vendors designing a parental control product, for instance, need threat intelligence capable of classifying content based on its appropriateness for children. And any parent knows malware isn’t the only thing children should be shielded from. Categories like adult content, gambling sites, or hubs for pirating legitimate media may also be worthy of avoiding. This flexibility extends to the workplace, too, where peer-to-peer streaming and social media sites can affect worker productivity and slow network speeds, not to mention introduce regulatory compliance concerns. Being able to classify internet object with such scalpel-like precision makes thoughtfully designed threat intelligence that is much more useful for the partners leveraging it.

Finally, the speed at which new threat intelligence findings are applied to all endpoints on a device is critical. It’s well-known that static threat lists can’t keep up with the pace of today’s malware, but updating those lists on a daily basis isn’t cutting it anymore either. The time from initial detection to global protection must be a matter of minutes.

This brings us back to where we started: the need for a robust, geographically diverse data set from which to draw our threat intelligence. For more information on how the Webroot Platform draws its data to protect customers and vendor partners around the globe, visit our threat intelligence page.

The post Thoughtful Design in the Age of Cybersecurity AI appeared first on Webroot Blog.

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Cybersecurity in Schools: What Families Need to Know

Reading Time: ~ 3 min.

Our kids are more connected than any previous generation. From the moment they wake up, they have an instant connection to the internet through phones, tablets, and laptops. The internet is also now an important part of their learning experience, and many parents often assume that cybersecurity has risen as a priority for school administrators. But with many institutions struggling to modernize legacy systems, that assumption puts our children’s security at risk. Here are the top threats to cybersecurity in schools and how to protect against them, so you can send your kids out the door knowing they’re safe and secure. 

Learn how VPNs help safeguard your data and can enable private and anonymous web browsing.

Unsecured School WiFi

Many school WiFi networks are as vulnerable as any public network at a coffee shop or airport. In an attempt to secure WiFi networks in K-12 environments, many schools use pre-shared key (PSK) authentication. PSK authentication is the practice of sharing a single WiFi password with network users in order to grant access. This password often makes its way onto unauthorized devices, granting potentially malicious users access to the school’s network, and to your child’s digital footprint.

Weak Cybersecurity Practices

A school’s cybersecurity defense plan is only as strong as its weakest link, and that weak link is often the plan’s users and overseers. According to Verizon’s 2019 Data Breach Investigation Report, a startling 35% of all education sector data breaches were caused by human error. Mistakes as simple as using discontinued or out-of-date software can leave entire school systems vulnerable—even at prestigious institutions like Stanford University. Because Stanford was using discontinued software called NolijWeb, a white hat hacker was able to exploit a security flaw that left sensitive student data easily accessed through a simple change to a numeric ID in a URL. While exploring the scope of the vulnerability, 81 students’ private data was exposed, including information like Social Security numbers, citizenship status, criminal status, standardized test scores, ethnicity, and home addresses.

Targeted Cybersecurity Attacks

Due to the highly sensitive data stored within their systems, education IT infrastructure is consistently a top target for cybercriminals. K-12 school systems and higher education saw more than 48 million records exposed through data breaches in 2017 and 2018 alone. The threat has become a large enough issue that the FBI has released a public service announcement warning that the education sector was one of those most frequently targeted by social engineering schemes and phishing attacks. 

Beyond traditional cyber threats, schools often face a unique adversary—the students themselves. The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) recently conducted a survey that examined more than 850 cyberattacks against schools and concluded that a majority of those incidents had been perpetrated by students or school staff. Although an attacker who targets a school so that they won’t have to take a test may not be as costly as one that targets student data, it still can grind a school system to a halt.

How to Protect Your Student’s Cybersecurity

How can you protect your child’s cybersecurity while they are at school? Get involved. Ask the school’s administrators about their cybersecurity policy. Ask about their strength of their firewalls, their email security measures, and the amount of encryption applied to the data storage systems. If you’re not satisfied with their measures, be your child’s cybersecurity advocate.

Although you may have limited control over any school-provided devices, you can secure your child’s personal devices behind a trusted VPN (though they must know how to use it first). This will wrap your child’s data in a tunnel of encryption, protecting them from prying eyes wherever they go. In some cases, VPNs can prevent access to testing and curriculum sites on school networks, so students should know how to connect and disconnect to their VPN at will.

Most importantly, teach your child to be aware of the risks of cybercrime and how to combat them. Help them understand how a VPN and other measures can keep them safe, how to recognize phishing attacks, and why they should always be vigilant. Your child knows to wear a seatbelt when riding in someone else’s car, they should also know how to stay safe online, whether at home, school, or a friend’s house.

The key to truly protecting your children from potential cybersecurity threats is education, both for yourself and for your family. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date on the latest risk reports and security tips.

The post Cybersecurity in Schools: What Families Need to Know appeared first on Webroot Blog.