Family Digital Hygiene and Child Safety Review for Australian Households: One Pass Across Every Device, Account, and Generation

Your mum forwards you a text from “Australia Post” with a link, asking if it’s real. Your teenager has a TikTok account you didn’t know about and a follower list you haven’t looked at. The family iPad still has your eight-year-old’s school login saved next to your banking app. Somewhere in the middle of all that, somebody clicks something they shouldn’t — and because the devices and accounts overlap, the damage doesn’t stay in one place. The Family Digital Hygiene and Child Safety Review from Cyber by Exegesis is one pass across the whole household to close the obvious gaps before they cost you.

The problem

ACCC Scamwatch consistently reports phishing as the most-reported scam category in Australia, with delivery, banking, and government-impersonation messages topping the list. The ACSC’s guidance for individuals and families is plain about what works — strong unique passwords, multi-factor authentication, automatic updates, and the habit of pausing before clicking — but in a real household none of that is set up uniformly. Parents have MFA on banking but not on email. Kids share devices with grandparents. An older relative’s phone has no spam filter configured and no idea who to call when something looks off.

The eSafety Commissioner is the right channel for cyberbullying, image-based abuse, and harmful content involving under-18s, but most families don’t know the reporting routes exist until they need them and can’t find them under pressure. The control gap across an Australian household is rarely one big hole — it’s twenty small ones that interact.

What the Family Digital Hygiene and Child Safety Review does

Cyber by Exegesis runs a fixed-scope household review covering:

• An account-level pass on the adults’ primary email, banking, MyGov, and social accounts — confirming MFA is on, recovery details are current, and passwords are unique and stored in a password manager.
• A device-level pass on every phone, tablet, laptop, and shared family computer — automatic updates on, screen lock set, find-my-device enabled, and a clear separation of child profiles from adult profiles where the device supports it.
• Child safety settings configured on the devices kids actually use — screen-time limits, app-store restrictions, in-app purchase controls, and a walk-through of the platform-level safety tools on the social apps already in the house.
• A 20-minute sit-down with any older relatives in the household on recognising phishing and scam messages, with the eSafety Commissioner and ACCC Scamwatch reporting routes written down and stuck on the fridge.
• A short written report listing what was changed, what each family member needs to remember, and a 90-day check-in.

Cyber by Exegesis is the cyber consultancy line of Exegesis — the same company behind the DRMO live product. This review is preventive. We are not your IT support; we set the controls, walk the household through them, and step back.

How it works

1. We start with a 30-minute call to map the household — who lives there, what devices they use, which accounts matter most, and whether older relatives are in scope.
2. We do the account-level pass with the adults present, working through email, banking, MyGov, and primary social accounts one at a time.
3. We do the device-level pass across every phone, tablet, and computer in the home, configuring child profiles and safety settings where they apply.
4. We sit with the kids (age-appropriately) and any older relatives to walk through what changed, what to do when something looks suspicious, and where to report it.
5. We leave you with the written report and a 90-day check-in to review what stuck and what didn’t.

Why this matters in Australia

Phishing is the most-reported scam category to ACCC Scamwatch, and the National Anti-Scam Centre’s data shows Australian households are targeted across every channel — SMS, email, social DM, and phone. The ACSC’s individuals and families guidance gives households a clear list of what to do, and the eSafety Commissioner provides statutory reporting routes for online harm involving children. The pieces are all there in public Australian guidance; what most households don’t have is one person who has walked through every device and every account in the home in a single pass. That is what this review does.

Sources

• ACSC guidance for individuals and families: https://www.cyber.gov.au/protect-yourself
• ACCC Scamwatch (National Anti-Scam Centre): https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/
• eSafety Commissioner: https://www.esafety.gov.au/
• OAIC Notifiable Data Breaches scheme (in the event a household account compromise involves an eligible breach of an organisation holding your data): https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/notifiable-data-breaches
• Cyber by Exegesis — Family Digital Hygiene and Child Safety Review (waitlist)

Join the waitlist

Join the waitlist — first access when Cyber by Exegesis opens the Family Digital Hygiene Review for Australian households

We are sequencing engagements by household composition (households with children under 13 first, then mixed-generation households including older relatives). Join the waitlist with a short note on who’s in your household — we will tell you when we are ready to take a brief.