February 2014
Featured in this insight: IT & telecommunications, Police, crime & community safety
Parents fear their children have been exposed to cyber threats, says survey: According to a Kaspersky Lab Study, more than a quarter (27%) of parents believe their children have been exposed to online risks, such as inappropriate content or cyber bullying in the past twelve months. Despite this, research to mark Safer Internet Day, has found that one in five parents (22%) takes no action to govern their children’s online activity.
Additionally, the study found that almost a fifth (18%) of parents had lost money or data from their personal device as a result of their child’s unmonitored access. Smartphone apps have often been blamed in the press for children inadvertently spending hundreds of pounds – effective controls and open channels of communication around Smartphones are imperative.
David Emm, Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab, said:
“Regardless of how their children are accessing the internet, parents must remain vigilant, supervise their internet use and consider parental control technologies. However, as a parent myself, I find these statistics particularly worrying when you consider the increasing number of children using connected Smartphones today. After all, when children use mobile devices to access the web, they are using the same internet, with the same risks – yet parents are often not as aware of the dangers.”
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