COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Dr. Shawn Murray is the president and CEO at Murray Security Services.
On the home front, he has his hands full with three kids in 5th, 8th and 11th grades.
“[Kids] really know how to use the technology and sometimes even better than we do as adults,” said Dr. Murray.
For the kids, having a dad in the cybersecurity world is a blessing and a curse.
“The kids have no access to social media.”
Surprisingly, Abbie, the eldest, doesn’t mind.
“All my friends are like ‘You should get this.’ ‘You should get that.’ ‘Why don’t you have this?’ And it just doesn’t matter to me much anymore,” said Abbie.
Ellie, the 8th grader, doesn’t feel the same, but follows dad’s rules all the same.
Murray is quick to remind Abbie, Ellie and Liam that the iPads and cell phones don’t really belong to them, that he and his wife technically own them.
“At night time, when they’re supposed to be in bed, those devices come in our room.”
Murray and his wife started the cybersafe conversations young and they utilize parental controls.
“I prefer iPhones because I can secure them better with parental controls.”
He encourages everyone to secure their router.
“You can actually log into your home network, your router, and configure only approved devices to be on the network.”
If your device has a camera, Murray insists on covering it when it’s not in use.
“There are sites where hackers will take videos of what’s going on in peoples’ rooms and either share that or sell it.”
Murray uses a net analyzer to see everything that’s on his network and who’s doing what, when and where.
“That’s not always appreciated, especially by my girls.”
Murray and his wife do check text messages and emails when the need arises.
“We do occasionally check to see what’s going on.”
While times have certainly changed, one thing hasn’t and probably never will.
“They try to get away with stuff just like we did when we were kids.”