If you haven't heard the Kristin Helms story I encourage you to watch the video below.
Online predators target our children every day and they don't stop there. They will do just about everything to gain access to your data, finances, and children.
This story is only one of so many stories out there about this pandemic in itself. With people staying home because of the pandemic they know kids are especially vulnerable right now and they know everyone is shopping online more than ever and this gives predators a much larger opportunity to exploit them both.
You maybe asking the question "but what can I do?" and to that I would answer "a lot actually". Unfortunately the answer isn't that simple because there really isn't a full proof way to keep things like this happening, however, we can reduce our chances in a big way.
As an IT expert for over 20 years I have read and watched a lot of stories around this topic and I decided to jump in and get to work on brining more awareness to this ongoing dilemma and to help expose ways we can reduce this risk and keep our children and our data safe.
Lets start by talking about anonymity online. One of the easiest ways to help prevent people from honing in and attacking your data or your child comes in the way of preventing what people can see about you while browsing online.
This is where a good VPN service comes into play. So what is a VPN and how does it help solves these kinds of problems? VPN stands for 'Virtual Private Network' and its role is to encrypt your online session and to give your computer a different IP address so that you are untraceable and all of your sessions are encrypted.
*Hint* Google and other search engines cannot trace you while you search the web!
You missed out!
I believe we have to discuss what an IP address is and what encryption is to give you a full understanding of why its important.
Simply put an IP address is the address that your ISP (internet service provider) assigns your device, in most cases a cable modem/router or satellite service. A lot of home networks look similar to the image below where you have a router that was given to you by your ISP and they assign that route an IP address. Think of it like your home mailing address, its yours and yours only.
In the image below you can see how that wireless router assigns non-routable IP's to all of your devices that connect to it. These "non-routable" addresses mean that they cannot access the internet, ever. Instead they do what we can NAT translation and they route the traffic from that non-routable IP address through the wireless router and it then sends that information out to the internet because that device DOES have a routable IP address.
Now lets do an experiment. Go to google.com and type 'What's my IP' and this will reveal the routable IP of your router. Can you already see how this is dangerous? You are always exposed the second you go online. You might be asking why I was willing to show my IP address in this article (typically I would never do this), however this is not really my IP address. Because I have my VPN turned on, it assigns me a different address and hides me from prying eyes on the internet.
What this comes down to is this, if someone knows your true, routable IP address they are already at the front door of your router, in your home, trying to get in. If you have some technical skills you can log into your router and enable logging and sift through those logs daily and you will see exactly what I am talking about.
I wont dive into what it all means, I just need you to understand that this happens daily and while your router does come with a built in firewall to keep people out, its not enough.
So what kind of VPN should you choose? For me, personally I use Pure VPN and I have been using it for years.
Why Choose Pure VPN to Protect You and Your Family and your devices?
Stay secure, private & anonymous online
This means no one can track you or your children online. It makes sure that you are completely protected, anonymous and on an AES 256-bit encrypted network every time you go online.
Can be installed on smart devices, like Amazon FireStick, Roku, and Xbox
Pure VPN supports 28 devices so you can install it just about anywhere you'd like and I encourage you to do so.
The VPN can be installed on mobile devices
NEVER go to the airport or Starbucks and connect to their Wi-Fi and access your data, this is a disaster and very welcomed by hackers. Turn your VPN on first!
Bypass internet restriction
Believe it or not, you can watch stuff in other countries using this VPN. You can simply choose a different IP address for whatever country you want, easily. This means you can now watch local stuff in that country, cool right?
I can't tell you that this product will save someone that is being seduced via social media, unfortunately that is not something this product or any product can fix. However, this is a big step in the right direction in terms of keeping people from tracking your children and data and stealing either one of them.
If you would like further information on this product or internet security in a whole, please send me an e-mail via the form at the bottom of this page. Please share this page to all social media, lets get more awareness out there and start fighting back!
You missed out!