Vectra’s Strategic Alliance Manager (and parent), Sara Nemer, is keen to share a personal experience on the importance of being a responsible user at home and on how we can protect our families while they are online.
The following is her narrative:
“After returning from the school break, I was checking in with the team and one of my colleagues mentioned that I should block a website called Omegle so my children can’t access it. It turned out that his 7-year-old son was exposed to highly inappropriate live content on this site, I was pretty shocked that his son was able to visit this site as my colleague is highly savvy when it comes to Cybersecurity.
Omegle is a website designed for site visitors to go on one-on-one chat or video call spree with strangers. And since it is free to use and requires no registration, people coming from all over the globe tend to flock this website to socialise and form new acquaintances. Needless to say, since it does not actively screen its participants or users, there is a constant risk of seeing and hearing extremely unsettling words and activities when using its services.
We strongly encourage you to block the said site and among other similar sites if you have children accessing the internet through your home devices.
You can find a list of recommendations of sites to consider blocking here:
You may also want to look into parental locks and controls that are available in most gadgets sold in the market today or download an application with a similar purpose.
This incident raised a conversation among our team around the security measures that we should have in place especially for our children and the devices that they are using at home as you can imagine. You may want to check out Parentology.com for further information about these sites and their hazards.”
This directly translates into the work environment especially when your team are working in non-conducive work locations.
We recently assisted a client whose business caters to vulnerable clients with the same dilemma. And since content filtering is essential for them, we introduced Cisco Umbrella.
Web Content Filtering
Cisco Umbrella is a web content filtering solution that helps users adhere to internal policies and external regulations that their company enforces. It allows you to approve or block sites that your users access. The level of accessibility can also be customised for every experience and need of the user. With this, also comes the capacity to prevent a team member from entering sites that potentially carry malware or those that can serve as distractions from their work to ensure productivity.
To round off this entire section, we, the users, are our ultimate endgame because it is our actions that decide the dependability and efficacy of our cybersecurity. After all, there is no greater technology than human initiative and instinct.
For more information about Cisco Umbrella or other solutions that we can assist you with this challenge, reach out HERE.
