Help me keep a senile parent safe online

Post date: 2023-05-28 06:30:58

My friend's father is slowly sliding into senility and can't keep himself safe from scammers, etc. while using his computer. I've recommended a few things to help my friend make their dad's online activities as safe as possible, but this isn't a situation I have much experience with and I wonder if there may be more/better options. All the online articles I can find are too basic and vague to be much use. I'm looking for specific suggestions.

My friend is currently living with their elderly parents. Mom is still doing fine, but dad's mind is going so he doesn't have a good memory or a good sense of logic and situational awareness. The other day they caught him talking to some "your computer has been hacked, we can fix it" type scammers; fortunately that got nipped in the bud before any harm was done. They've repeatedly told him not to do things like that, but he can't remember from one time to the next.

They've asked me for help as their "computer nerd" friend. I know this is a difficult situation, they have my sympathy and I want to do what I can to help. But I'm feeling a little out of my depth on this topic.

He's on a Mac, and uses Firefox with the AdBlock Plus extension.

What they've done so far:

- They've blocked everything by default, except a handful of allowed sites; further sites will be allowed as needed. But even that's not great, because (a) his friends send him jokes and videos he can't access, which upsets him; and (b) he's even gotten a "you've been hacked" pop-up on Facebook, which they'd assumed was safe.

- He no longer has access to credit cards, and he doesn't have passwords to his bank website; they've also changed most of the contact emails on those sites to one he doesn't have access to. But they're worried that scammers could talk him through resetting a password, or that they might have missed a vital email address.

- They also asked me about "safe" porn sites, since bless his old heart those still hold an interest for him.

What I've recommended so far:

- A good subscription-based proactive antivirus/antimalware program, such as BitDefender or Malwarebytes.

- Setting strictest security in Firefox, turning off saved passwords, and adding the uBlock Origin and Ghostery (with EVERYTHING manually blocked) extensions to block malicious ads and sites.

- Using a VPN such as ProtonVPN to block tracking and man-in-the-middle attacks.

Other possibilities I don't know enough about:

- Some sort of parental control software to prevent him from doing certain things or accessing system admin functions?

- "Load on startup" sandbox software so that even if he gets himself into trouble the host system is protected?

I'd appreciate any advice on those and any other steps they could be taking to minimize the amount of damage dad could inadvertently cause.

Thanks!

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