Published on May 11, 2021
Menlo Security working with child cyber safety expert to educate parents and students about staying safe online
Donating Cyber Safety Workbooks to the Michelle Obama School in Richmond, California
Mountain View, CA – May 11, 2021—Social media is the least trusted platform for children, according to 55 percent of respondents to an online poll1 about cyber parenting conducted by Menlo Security, a leader in cloud security. As part of its effort to keep users safe while online, Menlo Security has partnered with Cyberlite Books, a cyber safety education start-up, to promote a cyber safety workbook for children and parents. As part of this effort and central to the company’s values, Menlo Security is donating 500 of Cyberlite’s cyber safety workbooks to the Michelle Obama School in Richmond, California.
The ”Ready, Get Set, Connect!” cyber safety workbook can be purchased here. Nina Bual, co-founder of Cyberlite Books, will hold two virtual workshops in May for the Michelle Obama School’s parents and students. These Cyber Safety workshops, hosted by Bual, are designed to educate parents and students about ways to minimize cyber risks. The parent workshop also includes information about how to support their children in dealing with online safety issues.
In the last year, children have spent more time online during the pandemic; according to research, 60 percent of parents said their children spent no more than three hours daily on devices pre-pandemic. Now, 70 percent estimate their kids spend at least four hours daily with screens.
Poll Findings
Menlo Security recently conducted a poll asking parents about their concerns around increased online exposure during the quarantine periods. The Menlo Security poll is part of the company’s initiative to highlight the risks to children online, raise awareness about some of the issues and provide tools to support those responsible for young people and their internet habits.
The poll found that parents are particularly worried about what their children are exposed to while online, with meeting strangers the biggest concern (50 percent), followed by cyberbullying (27 percent), sharing images (16 percent), and loss of privacy (7 percent).
Parents were also concerned about gaming sites (19 percent), video-sharing websites (17 percent), and streaming TV series (8 percent).
The poll revealed that almost three-quarters (72 percent) of respondents believe that parents should be responsible for their child’s security on the internet, yet almost two-thirds (63 percent) said that they had not placed any restrictions on their children’s use of the internet during lockdown. They cited the reasons as either internet usage is too hard to control (20 percent) or restricting internet usage is not necessary (43 percent). This is despite respondents indicating that they had worries over their child’s increased exposure to social media (40 percent), games (38 percent), video share sites (12 percent), and chat room apps (10 percent).
Supporting Quotes
“Parents spend an average of 46 minutes educating their children on cyber safety in their entire lifetime; couple this with the fact that an average child above the age of 13 spends 7 hours per day online for leisure activity alone, and it’s easy to see where the disparity and the concern lies. We all need to be doing better in equipping our children to have the skills to navigate safely when online.” — Nina Bual, Co-founder, Cyberlite Books
“Online learning has been a challenge that our children, parents and school staff were not prepared for. Protecting our students comes first — physically and virtually. It’s important to educate the students as well as the parents on internet and computer crime. Learning together in these cyber safety workshops, coupled with the workbooks, is a great resource for the Michelle Obama School family. We are grateful for the support of Nina Bual, Cyberlite Books and Menlo Security for making this happen!” — Elaine Carbonell, Executive Vice President, Michelle Obama School PTA
“In March of 2020 we had to quickly pivot to online schooling for our students. We learned something new every day, including the enormous challenges we faced working to keep our students safe in an online environment. Children have been spending an increased amount of time online using it to socialize and learn, potentially exposing them to more cyber risks than ever before. The workshops and workbooks that Nina Bual and Menlo Security are providing will help our parents and students understand cyber safety and why it is so important.” —Claudia Velez, Principal, Michelle Obama School
“Menlo Security believes using the internet should be safe, seamless and effective. Cyber safety is a key component of this value. The internet should be a safe environment for everyone, especially children, and technology has an important part to play in this. Keeping everyone safe online is a priority. Both parents and children should be equipped with the necessary knowledge and tools to ensure that spending time online is a safe and secure activity. We are delighted to partner with Nina and Cyberlite Books to provide the parents and students at the Michelle Obama School with meaningful and actionable information that will help them stay safe online.”—Rosemary Fantozzi, Vice President, Human Resources, Menlo Security
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• Drawing 10,447 responses, the Menlo Security Twitter poll was conducted during the week of April 12, 2021.
About Menlo Security
Menlo Security protects organizations from cyberattacks by eliminating the threat of malware from the web, documents, and email. Menlo Security’s isolation-powered cloud security platform scales to provide comprehensive protection across enterprises of any size, without requiring endpoint software or impacting the end user-experience. Menlo Security is trusted by major global businesses, including Fortune 500 companies and eight of the ten largest global financial services institutions, and is backed by Vista Equity Partners, Neuberger Berman, General Catalyst, American Express Ventures, Ericsson Ventures, HSBC, and JP Morgan Chase. Menlo Security is headquartered in Mountain View, California. For more information, please visit www.menlosecurity.com.