Eugene Kaspersky warns: Educating children on social networks is essential

Eugene Kaspersky, CEO and Co-Founder of Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content and threat management solutions, stresses the importance of educating children on the best practices of exposing personal data in social networks.

Nowadays kidnappers actively use social networks to scan for personal information about possible victims and understand their daily routine. Criminals are able to track down their victims` movement, monitor their updates and estimate personal security level through social networks such as the Russian website Vkontakte or international network Facebook.

Kaspersky said, “According to Insidefacebook.com, 46.4% of Facebook users are under the age of 25 and 20.6% are under the age of 17. In addition, The OnGuard Online states that 22% of 16-24 year olds don’t know the people they share information with on social networks. Teenagers and young adults are very passionate about networking and rarely take into consideration the consequences of over-sharing”.

 “Poor privacy settings and low awareness of the circumstances of sharing personal information contribute to increasing the danger of being hacked or tracked. This can result to personal information floating directly into the hands of people with less than friendly intentions”, he continued.

Two suggestions were introduced by Eugene to try to minimize the risk on children from the dangers of social networks. Firstly, he suggested that social networks should introduce age-related features to decrease the risk associated with uncontrolled personal data exposure. For Example, kids should be allowed to set up their profiles as their parents’ sub-account, in the meanwhile, parents can use parental control features in security software to allow access to approved and monitored profiles only.

Secondly, the safety and security of social networks should be part of the educational system at schools. Children should receive regular classes on how to prevent themselves from the danger of becoming victims of hackers and cybercriminals.

“Security and usability is always a matter of well-balanced compromise. Families should find their own solutions to this issue, as I don’t see a one-fits-all recipe”, said Eugene.

As part of Kaspersky Lab’s corporate mission, a fully dedicated non-profit educational program was founded years ago under the name of “Kaspersky Academy” and it was made available for any university or school who requests trainings for teenagers and young adults on data security.