Cybercrooks do no go on a holiday and innocent kids may be victimised by them as children spend a lot of time on the Internet during vacations, say experts.
Online stalking, spams, phishing attacks and illegal content including pornography are the various tools used by cybercrooks and parents need to exercise extra caution to protect children, they say.
“Children being inexperienced and innocent are always targeted by cyberfrauds. Malware attacks increase during school vacations and crooks employ social engineering tactics that play upon human weaknesses and influence people into falling for scams, especially children,” says Vinoo Thomas, Technical Product Manager, McAfee Labs.
“Social networking sites can be easily used to befriend children. Kids can also be lured to reveal their personal details and credit card information leading to siphoning off money from accounts. Besides, they may be exposed to porn content as well,” says Thomas.
According to a survey conducted by TCS across 12 Indian cities last year, 63 per cent of urban students spend over an hour online daily and 62 per cent have a personal computer at home. Over 80 per cent find time for the Internet alongside school, classes and extra-curricular activities, and are starting to embrace Web 2.0 tools like blogs and social networking sites, the report says.
