Role of Teachers in Cyber Security
After parents, students are spending most of their time in the school under the supervision of teachers. Now-a-days, online class room sessions are not a novice to the student community and most of them are accessing content using mobile / tab / laptop. So, teachers will have to first understand different aspects of internet security and be able to guide the students accordingly. They should also be able to help parents in understanding cyber safety related issues and protection methods. Society is expecting such proactive initiative from teachers.
A good teacher should know the pros and cones of internet world. Teacher should be a guardian of the students and parents by protecting them from the dangers paused by cyber threats.
Internet users are unaware of the numerous security risks that exists in the cyber world, such as privacy violations, identity theft, sexual harassment etc. Internet users readily expose personal and private details about themselves, such as date of birth, school name, email address, phone number and even home address. This information, if reaching the wrong hands, can be used to harm users both in the virtual world and in the real world. These risks become even more severe when the users are children. What are the existing solutions that can provide better protection, security, and privacy for internet users. Let’s see simple-to-implement recommendations for such users, which can improve their security and privacy when using these platforms.
Many of us using services and platforms offered by companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram etc. are unaware of the securely issues connected with them. Though these services seems to be available for “free”, the companies are making their profit by selling our personal information to prospective advertisers. You might have seen such targeted advertisements while surfing the platforms.
Say for example: suppose you search for Kerala in Google, you will find advertisements like hotels in the State or air tickets to Kochi etc. So, if you are searching for travelling to Kerala from other places, you would click on the links of such advertisements which will ensure income for Google through ‘AdWords’ or ‘AdSense’ tools that they are offering to businesses. Moreover, Google ‘remembers’ your choices, preferences, surfing patterns, items searched and the like apart from your age, gender, location (available through IP address), phone number and other personal informations. While using their services by accepting the terms and conditions (often written in small letters running into many pages) by simply clicking on “I Agree”.
Another issue is the ‘digital footprint’ that is created by you available with the ISP (Internet Service Provider – like BSNL or Jio or Airtel) which are mandatory to be shared with any government investigation agencies (police or CBI etc). It is a log of all the activities that you do using the internet which can be tracked, if you are engaging in illegal activities. This is how the ‘cyber police’ and other such agencies are ensuring a safe virtual world for the citizens. Today, it is even possible to have a ‘virtual war’ between countries without firing even a single bullet, by targeting enemies banks, government services and other facilities that are run on the internet. You might have seen news that Hackers changed the Home page in the web site of a Bank with illicit messages.