The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has forced families to spend their free time mostly at
home. Staying at home usually also means spending much time using different internet
connected devices. For clear reasons, children’s growing online activity can cause lots of
worries to their parents.
Thus, according Kaspersky survey ,30% of Egyptian parents claim that they have come
across something in their child’s social media account that seemed suspicious. Elaborating on what it exactly was, they mention video on their page (45%), people they interact with
(40%), posts that he publishes or shares (38%), groups or public pages they join (31%) and private messages (20%).
What is more, 39% state their child has seen or listened to something that seemed
suspicious to them, be that videos (69%), photos (30%) or music (13%). Obviously, these
data show the need to explore the interests of children, to make sure everything is okay or
it is necessary to take action. However, not all the parents realize it – only 46% of them
befriend their children via social networks in order to be connected with their kids – sometimes real communication is not enough and the parents have to look carefully at their
children’s webpages.
«It gets harder and harder for parents to keep up with the pace of modern evolving world.
They are often left out of the picture as they simply do not catch with trends that emerge way too fast. However, it is possible to stop this backlog by communicating with your child
and ensuring your presence on the Internet – to build trust and good relationship with your child you have to know what you are talking about with them» – states Maher Yamout,
Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky.
In order to eliminate groundless suspicions about your child’s digital life and to secure their
presence on social media, Kaspersky strongly recommends following this advice:
1. Learn more on the topic of children’s cybersecurity: explore modern trends, apps, the
way of behavior that has to be adopted in order to safeguard against dangers (for instance, the basic security rules while on the Internet);
2. Communicate with your child and define the borders which are not meant to cross: discuss with them safe locations both real and webpages;
3. Install a reliable security solution such as Kaspersky Safe Kids to monitor your child’s activity successfully.