Your Kids Are Probably Compromising Your Online Security

There's a lot of information out there about how to protect our kids from online dangers of all kinds. But what about keeping us safe from some of our children's less-than-stellar online behavior?

It turns out the younger generation can be a little blasé about online security. This can have annoying results — as when my friend's kid downloaded the Bible onto her phone; not once but twice — or calamitous consequences: The global cybersecurity and digital privacy company Kaspersky determined that cybercriminals in 2022 alone launched more than 7 million attacks on children through their participation in video games.

Kids, of course, aren't the only ones who could stand to tighten up their online security, but their naiveté may make them more susceptible to bad actors of all kinds.

David Farrow owns Creative Goose, a tech company in San Rafael, California, that offers IT support to solopreneurs and others who work from home. The business has changed as internet security becomes ever more complicated and important. "For a long time I used to help people make better use of their computers," he said, "but I would say the vast majority of what I'm doing is really security-oriented now."

In essence, he doesn't think adults behave much better than their kids when it comes to cybersecurity, but at least they're invested in trying to keep themselves safe. Young people who have grown up with technology may feel less concerned about the ramifications of loose security. Here are four things to watch out for when it comes to your kids' online behavior.

Young people are more likely than adults to use public computers, whether they're at school, the library or some other place that gives public access to the internet. Maybe your kid checks email on the school computer, or orders something from Amazon. If he doesn't log out when he's done, he's just left a potential back door for a hacker — and chances are that the Amazon account is connected to your bank account, not his.

While you may assume that your friends and neighbors are taking precautions to keep their networks safe, they may not be on top of the latest developments in internet security. So, if your child uses a friend's computer, they need to be sure they're not leaving themselves open to future hacking. While it's most important to log out of email and ecommerce accounts associated with payment methods, best practice is to log out of any site you've visited while on a computer that's not your own.

Passwords are wildly annoying and hard to remember; thus the urge to reuse the same one over and over. This isn't just young people — many adults reuse passwords or are using laughably simple ones. But young people are less likely to take internet security seriously.

According to a research paper presented at the 30th annual Usinex Security Symposium, "[young people] simultaneously do not tend to make strong passwords, and practice bad password behavior such as sharing passwords with friends."

"Your login credentials," says Farrow, "are like a set of keys. Even if you do nothing wrong and your security is perfect, sooner or later one of those websites you log into will get (or has already been) hacked. The bad guys specifically look to steal the rolls of all the username and password pairs that the website had, like a giant digital key ring. They can then go to other sites and 'try the locks' with your username and password pair. If the key fits and they get in, they can take over your accounts."

And are you clear on who has access to your various accounts? You may have had the experience of logging in to Netflix and noticing an extra profile has been set up without your knowledge or approval. We taught our kids to share, after all. But it's possible they're giving your login information to their friends without your permission. The further it spreads, the higher the risk to you.

It's nice that our kids haven't yet become jaded, suspicious adults, but their naiveté makes them particularly vulnerable to scams of all kinds. According to the National Cybersecurity Alliance's Annual Cybersecurity Attitudes and Behaviors Report 2022, members of Gen Z are almost three times as likely to fall for phishing scams than boomers. Many of those scams are generated through fake ads or direct messages on social media, our kids' second home.

While the loss of money or personal data may be restricted to your child, if they click on a phishing link while on your home network, they put the entire family at risk. According to Farrow, "There are certainly a few malware threats that 'look around' on whatever network they are on in an attempt to spread, or perhaps to infect a router or server upstream."

If you have reason to believe that a computer is compromised and you want to prevent any possibility of the malware spreading, the protocol is quite simple: pull the plug on the computer. Do not use the "shut down" procedure, just make it turn off immediately and keep it off — and physically disconnected from any networks — until you can hand it to an IT professional for evaluation.

We've also got to remember that kids may not want to admit that they've been victimized. An adult friend recently received an email from a so-called hacker threatening to reveal embarrassing photos if she didn't send them money. She knew it was a scam, and that no such pictures existed. But would a 17-year-old be able to make that distinction? Particularly if that teenager had some potentially embarrassing content on their phone?

Lots of young people are using their parent's cast-off electronics. While they may perform adequately, old operating systems are not always eligible for security updates.

"The single most challenging dynamic for me," says Farrow, "is telling somebody that their perfectly good computer, that they're perfectly happy using . . . must be replaced because I can't keep it secure. Apple, for example, has drawn a fairly clear line in the sand that they will only support the last three operating systems. So how many kids are still using the older ones?"

Supporting the OS, in this case, means sending out security updates. Apple isn't the only company to leave old operating systems in the dust; Microsoft currently only supports Windows 10 and 11, so if you've got anything older, you're not getting any security patches. This isn't the fault of the young people using the old machines, but it's yet another way they may unwittingly be putting themselves and the entire family network at risk.

We tend to think of our kids as digital natives who know how to navigate the internet way better than we do. But that familiarity doesn't always mean they're looking out for themselves and their, and our, safety. While parental controls may keep kids away from dangerous sites (until they learn to take them off, of course) it's our job to teach them to look both ways before running out into the virtual street.

Julia Williamson is a writer based in Portland, OR, with experience writing about parenting, aging, decluttering and giving yourself a break. She publishes the newsletter Families and Other Freaks every Sunday. Read More