How Smith Micro is Helping to Keep the Internet Safe
Over 307 million people hop online daily in the US, the third most in the world, according to Statista.com. The total number of people concurrently using the internet worldwide is just about five billion. With an enormous number of people accessing the internet to do various tasks, connect with one another, or trying to find a funny cat video, there are sure to be bad actors waiting to use the terabytes of data exchanged daily maliciously. Thankfully, people and organizations are trying to make the internet safer for everyone, including Smith Micro. As today is Safer Internet Day, let’s go over how Smith Micro is helping to keep its end users safe online.
SafePath
Smith Micro provides solutions to companies that give their customers the tools to protect against malicious websites and inappropriate content at home and in stores. SafePath, Smith Micro’s Family Digital Safety solution, is a holistic application that helps to keep families safe at home, on the road, and online. SafePath offers its customers anti-malware and anti-phishing technology that helps to ward off unsolicited attacks from insecure or inappropriate websites. Extending this functionality is the SafePath Home module, which allows a customer to apply digital parenting tools like web monitoring, web filtering, web history and device classification for parents to help protect their child from online predation or identify sites that may have contributed to various threats affecting their home devices.
The tools are available to parents to allow them to facilitate a safer internet for their children; SafePath Home runs autonomously and efficiently to prevent web threats. For example, the web monitoring feature protects a child’s device from accessing an insecure site that hides a virus in the available downloadable app. The download will fail because SafePath Home detects a malicious site with threats and automatically blocks further access to the site. The parent can receive an alert to view the name of the malicious site, the threat being thwarted, the date and time the threat was identified, and which devices were at risk. Parents can talk to their children about identifying insecure or malicious sites online. Using SafePath and educating children about malicious websites can be an effective strategy to protect the most vulnerable online users.
ViewSpot
Through the retail management and digital signage platform ViewSpot, retailers can feel assured that their browsing customers don’t infect devices with malware or access inappropriate content through the store’s Wi-Fi. This is because ViewSpot has comprehensive features like URL filtering that automatically allows store managers to block specific sites and apps on in-store devices. Because of these features, customers of all ages can safely browse a retailer’s selections of devices without fearing someone opening offensive content from the previous person on it.
In Conclusion
Smith Micro is committed to helping its partners, and end users instill a sense of safety when going online with its SafePath and ViewSpot solutions. By leveraging digital parenting features, SafePath helps protect families from the unknown dangers lurking on the internet. ViewSpot keeps retail customers safe by limiting what they can and cannot access on in-store devices. However, these tools are only one aspect of the internet safety equation. A safer internet experience requires due diligence from everyone using this great resource to keep themselves and others safe on the net.
