Thinking about cyber security education for young children, elderly parents and grandparents might not be necessarily be on the top of your priority list. But, it is important given the substantial increase in malware and ransomware they are likely to encounter from even casual use of the internet.

An article in GlobalSign’s blog in March highlighted the amount of malware launches occurring now (230,000 a day) and the increase in ransomware infections (a 137% increase since 2016) which highlights the importance of  educating young children and the elderly on how to avoid those attacks they are likely to face surfing the net.

A few of the tips in the article to help young children safely use the internet were:

• Explain that accepting a friend request from a stranger on the internet and starting a conversation is like starting a conversation with a stranger on the street.
• Uploading pictures of people without knowing them can hurt you.
• Only communicate with people you know: you wouldn’t give your name and address to someone you didn’t know even if they asked for it.

The article suggested directing seniors to  free computer video lessons designed for them on websites like Magana, assisting seniors in selection of passwords, and showing them how to recognize if a website has a security certificate.