CYBER CRIME PREVENTION

On April 21, 2009, the Fort Bragg Police Department arrested an online predator in the City of Fort Bragg. We at the Fort Bragg Police Department would like to use this opportunity to educate the public about what precautions you can take to protect your families from online predators. The following is a short list of some precautions you can take to better protect your children from this growing threat to their safety.

  • Parents, educate yourselves first: Know about online predators, financial scams, viruses, cyber-bullying and the pervasiveness of pornography on the Internet.
  • Talk to your child: Open communication between parents and children is important to keeping your kids safe. Ensure that they can talk to you about things on the Web that make them feel uncomfortable.
  • Monitor your children: Consider options like sharing an email account, checking your browser’s history, keep the computer in a common room and maintaining access to your kids’ accounts.
  • Recommend kid directories: There are a number of search sites geared for children. Others are targeted at teens.
  • Parental control software: One option is to purchase software that establishes computer user time limits and controls access to sites, games, chats, and file sharing. It can be adapted to offer different levels of control for different ages of children.
  • Install the right defensive software: Make sure you have quality anti-virus, anti-spyware, spam blocker, and a personal firewall, and keep security patches up-to-date.
  • Carefully select mobile devices: Look for digital device models that are "child-safe," which often don’t provide camera or Web access. Some child-safe phones even let parents limit the numbers the phone can call.


05-2009