Danger lurks online: Expert reveals children talk to strangers online

FORTY-FIVE per cent of children under the age of eight speak to strangers online. These statistics was shared to delegates of the inaugural Virtual- Flex INNOVATE 23 Conference on Denarau Island by director of Cyber Security ANZ, CISCO Corien Vermaak last week.
With the increasing use of technology in society, the international award-wining author of Hacker Mom, a book that help parents understand how to talk to their children about cyber security,
has urged parents to be aware of their children’s activities online.
“Our children will use technology everywhere so it is critical that we help them become good digital citizens, protect the privacy and protect their own physical security and that’s what my book is about,” Ms Vermaak said.
“People have smartphones, access the internet and children are using the internet and if you think about the challenge of parents and the digital access their children and family members have at home.
“But I always use this analogy, when your child is playing outside on the bicycle and they stumble or they fall, what do we do? We go we pick them up and we let them try again.
“The same applies for this digital age, we need to be there for our children, we need to sit next to them see what they watching and understand how we can help them and safeguard significance
of conflicts.”
Ms Vermaak said this inaugural conference provided a level platform for representatives from the Pacific region to understand well the threats provided by the internet and learning from global leaders would help them understand better how to deal with those online threats.
She mentioned that it was also vital for Pacific IT experts to grasp better knowledge of securing proper data security and how best they could implement it within their own businesses and societies.