Back-to-School Time: Is Your Child’s Mobile Device Secure?

Once upon a time, the back-to-school weeks used to involve parents buying their children new shirts, pants, and shoes for the year ahead. But times have changed.

Today, it’s more likely anxious moms and dads are investing significantly more of their hard earned dollars into laptops, smartphones, and tablets for their little ones. But while technology has opened up new learning opportunities for 21^st century students, it has also raised the fears around device theft, data security, and cyberbullying.

That’s why Trend Micro™ Mobile Security comes with a raft of new features to help keep your child and their device(s) safe from online harm.

Growing threats

We all know that the Mobile Internet Age represents the latest round in an ongoing battle with the cybercriminals. They’ve been particularly good at hiding malware inside legitimate looking mobile apps in anticipation that they’ll be downloaded and installed by unsuspecting users.

Trend Micro had discovered more than five million such apps by the end of March this year on the Android platform alone. Cybercriminals have also been pretty good at distributing malware via malicious links in text or WhatsApp messages, or on social media pages.

This malware could do anything harmful – from firing annoying ad pop-ups on the screen to stealing your personal and financial information, spying on you, or even locking you out altogether until a ransom is paid.

Children are both more tech savvy and more reckless than ever before – a bad combination if ever there was one. They’re likely to take more risks online which could get them into trouble, while their schools can be a hotbed of petty theft.

Now, there’s an extra dimension to worry about: cyberbullying, inappropriate content, and online grooming. Not only do concerned parents need to ensure their child’s personally identifiable data is kept secure, but they also need to restrict them to approved sites and socializing with the appropriate people.

This can be a tall order. Especially as you won’t see them for the duration of the day, and the sites they’re most likely to visit – like Facebook, Snapchat and others – can be among the more dangerous out there.

Enter Trend Micro Mobile Security

That’s why we’ve just released a new and enhanced version of Trend Micro™ Mobile Security for Android and iOS. It received a 99.9% malicious app detection rating from AV-test.org and has been given similarly high marks by NSS Labs.

Here are a few more reasons why Trend Micro Mobile Security is the best choice for parents this back-to-school season:

Lost Device Protection: In the event the worst happens, there are remote location, lock, and wipe capabilities. The device will also lock if the SIM card is removed. Additionally, there’s a ”Remote Scream” function that can trigger an alarm Safe Surfing: Parental controls can be applied to filter inappropriate sites and block malicious web pages Call and Text Blocker: If your child is getting unwanted attention, unwanted calls, and texts can be filtered based on keywords, callers, whitelists, and blacklists Social Networks: Over-sharing on social sites can be a real problem, so we’ll scan Facebook and recommend privacy enhancements Block Data Theft: A privacy scanner detects and blocks spyware, while a new Billing Security feature will filter out malicious banking, shopping, and financial apps designed to steal money and credentials Malware Blocker: This blocks threats on Google Play before they can be installed. There’s also an app virus scanner and malware cleaner to check and remove anything else that might try to creep onto your device

It’s not all about security. Trend Micro Mobile Security is also a great tool for improving performance thanks to:

NEW App Manager: will allow users to recover space from unused or rarely used apps Back-up and Restore: copies and saves contact info, even between iOS and Android Battery Optimizer: kills non-essential background processes Smart Power Saver: disconnects network connection when not in use Just-a-phone: turns off power drain features not required for phone/texting Memory Optimizer: Kills tasks to free up memory.

Parents have enough to stress about before the new term starts without thinking about the online dangers facing their children. So check out Trend Micro Mobile Security and see how we can bring you peace of mind and keep that mobile device safe from harm.

Download Trend Micro Mobile Security now:

For Android

For iPhones

And for more information on how to keep your family and kids safe online visit: http://ift.tt/1jMEd9h

(Note: the above list describes the product feature set for the Android platform)

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