OMAHA, NE—FBI Omaha Field Office Special Agent in Charge Kristi K. Johnson is encouraging parents, students, and teachers to take advantage of the FBI’s Safe Online Surfing program; a free, fun, and educational program for children.

The goals of FBI’s Safe Online Surfing (SOS) Internet Challenge program are to teach children in third through eighth grades how to recognize and respond to online dangers such as cyberbullying, online predators, and identity thieves.

The SOS program teaches young people about web terminology and how to recognize secure and trustworthy sites. Other lessons cover how to protect personal details online, create strong passwords, avoid viruses and scams, be wary of strangers and be a good virtual citizen. Students and their parents can visit the island that corresponds with their grade level and surf through activities that teach how to recognize hazards and respond appropriately. The SOS program is designed to meet all federal and state Internet safety mandates so that students and teachers can use this as part of their curriculum in the classroom. Schools can compete with each other on a national level and schools with the highest scores will earn an FBI-SOS certificate. More than one million students completed the program and took the SOS exam during the 2018-2019 school year. SOS activities are available to everyone, but teachers must register for a class to participate in the tests and competition. Any public, private, or home school in the United States with at least five students is eligible for the online challenge. Teachers manage their students’ participation in the program and the FBI does not collect or store any student information.

Since October 2012, the FBI-SOS website has been visited nearly 3.6 million times, with a total of more than 10.6 million page views. Parents, students, and teachers can visit https://sos.fbi.gov/en/.

For media inquiries please call (402) 493-8688 or email mmstevenson@fbi.gov.