In 2011, the World Wide Web celebrated its 20th anniversary. Seems hard to believe that it’s been around for that long, impacting research and the way we communicate with others, but it has. And, along with all the positives it has gifted us, there are some negatives, including identity theft, misleading information, psychological damages with cyberbullying cases on the rise, and security concerns that range from financial fraud to personal data breaches.
As technology continues to impact our daily routines, so do the obstacles challenging students, educators, faculty, and staff. Cyberbullying, cyberstalking, cybercrimes, and online sexual predation harms online users—and can be particularly damaging to children. Protecting your students, families, and employees against these crimes is an ongoing struggle for schools. Having an established crisis plan in place that includes threats that stem from online events is one way schools can protect themselves.
Another way schools can protect themselves from technology threats is to stay current with news, trends, and lingo that applies to cyberthreats. In a recent article published by Education News Cyber Attack Prevention for Students, Parents, and Educators, author Delia Stafford defines a trending term, iPredator.
“iPredator: is a person, group, or nation who, directly or indirectly, engages in exploitation, victimization, coercion, stalking, theft or disparagement of others using Information and Communications Technology (ICT). iPredators are driven by deviant fantasies, desires for power and control, retribution, religious fanaticism, political reprisal, psychiatric illness, perceptual distortions, peer acceptance or personal and financial gain. iPredators can be any age or gender and are not bound by economic status, race, religion or national heritage.”
The article includes a transcribed interview with Dr. Michael Nuccitelli, Psy.D C.F.C., who introduces his study on Dark Psychology as well as his development of iPredator, an Internet safety and predator-prevention software that helps schools and businesses protect their employees, students, and assets. For more information about Dr. Michael Nuccitelli’s work with schools and organizations, visit his site at ipredator.co.
iPredator is also the name of another service that provides users with an encrypted tunnel from their computer to the Internet (VPN). In layman’s terms, it hides the user’s IP address behind one of theirs. As with most things in this world, it can be used for good as well as for evil. Just knowing such services exist and are readily available for the public can help you plan and act against suspicious online activity.
Additional ISM articles of interest
ISM Monthly Update for Risk Managers Vol. 3 No. 1 Crisis Planning—It’s Your Job
ISM Monthly Update for Business Managers Vol. 11 No.2 Risk Management: Avoiding Scams
ISM Monthly Update for Risk Managers Vol. 1 No. 4 Managing Risk, Liability, and Student Medical Records
