Kaspersky Lab's David Emm on children being targeted by paedophiles while using live streaming sites

In response to the story about paedophiles targeting children using live streaming sites, please see below a comment from David Emm, principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab UK.

David said: “Live streaming continues to grow in popularity and is becoming ever more lucrative, with increasing numbers of children using it but in doing so becoming vulnerable to threats such as this. This report is of course extremely disturbing and worrying, but serves as a wakeup call to social media companies, parents and anyone who goes online of the dangers children are presented with. It’s easy to forget that children and young people are inherently vulnerable and may expose themselves to danger, whether knowingly or unknowingly, when using the internet and connected devices. It is the combined duty of care of the security industry, government and parents, to mitigate the risks and provide children with a safe, secure online environment where they can work, rest and play.

“The anonymity provided by the Internet already makes it easy for online groomers to pretend to be someone they aren’t in order to gain a child’s trust.  Parents all too often assume that, because children are tech-savvy, they are safe online.  However, this is usually not the case.  And there’s little in the way of public information. What this report highlights more than anything is that big companies, such as Google and Youtube, still have much work to do to protect the people who use their platforms. It is still too easy for abusive adults to exploit children for their own gains.”

There are several tips Kaspersky Lab recommends for parents to adopt to help protect their children when they are online:

1. Supervision – This may seem obvious, but supervise your child’s internet use. Encourage them to visit and stay on websites you’re familiar with. If you have any concerns, look at their browsing history. Be sure to know about any password-protected sites they may be accessing and ask them to share their login details with you.
2. Be open – Encourage your child to be open about what they are doing online and who they are socialising with. Promote a culture of safety within the home and talk about the possible dangers which exist. 
3. Protect your family – Use parental controls to block access to sites you don’t want your child looking at as part of your online security product – it’s an easy way to avoid disaster. Review the default settings on each app that your child uses to ensure that the camera or microphone, for example, aren’t needlessly turned on as these can pose a threat.