Can you imagine that even children can suffer from online fraud? Here’s a story, a 12-year-old girl added a strange netizen when she was using her mother’s mobile phone to surf the Internet. The other person claimed to be a police officer, saying that her parents had violated the law and her account had been frozen, so she must be unfrozen within 30 minutes, otherwise she would be sent to prison.
The girl was frightened. In fear and worry, she transferred more than $7000 to the other party according to the request of the swindler. After the swindler succeeded, he asked her not to tell her parents and asked her to delete the short message of the verification code. It was not until the girl’s mother came home that she found the child had been cheated, so she called the police.
Children who are new to the world can easily get private information from strangers in a sentence or two, which is especially easy to be cheated. This is the main reason why online fraudsters choose children to cheat.
Generally, fraudsters use winning prizes, low prices or gifts as bait to lure their children, or steal their children instant messaging tools, and then enter group chat to publish collection information or borrow money from friends. They also falsely claim that they are state functionaries, so as to cheat their children into trust and frighten timid and simple children by investigating and handling information.
In addition to fraud, criminals will also take the opportunity of chatting to cheat children’s trust, obtain private information, and even guide children to expose their privacy through children’s games.
Nowadays, the Internet has become a part of the growing environment for children, and it is showing a trend of younger age. It is easier for cyber criminals to regard children who lack judgment as the targets of fraud and abuse. Parents must be vigilant and pay attention to their children’s online activities.
What should we do?
At the technical level
Parents or guardians can use the “Internet Management” function module of some anti-virus software to set the white list for the child’s network environment and control the actual time of using the network. At the same time, we should also improve our cyber security knowledge and work with our children to improve their ability to deal with network security risks.
Help children set strong passwords instead of simple birthday or weak passwords such as 123456.
Guide teenagers not to connect WiFi with unknown origin, click links sent by others, install software with unknown origin, scan QR code, etc. Do not open the attachment randomly. It may be the code with virus. Try not to download the unfamiliar program.
Let the child know that if a stranger logs in, the system will definitely prompt him to change his password in time when encountering suspicious situations.
When you receive an email from a stranger, you should carefully identify it. If it is an email of award, invitation or news notification, you must tell your parents and teachers to help you identify it; If it is junk software, it should be deleted in time.
In daily life
Teach children not to add instant messaging tools of strangers randomly, and not to tell their real names, addresses, phone numbers, family information, school addresses, etc. on the network.
Tell children not to meet online friends easily. If they must meet, they should go to places where there are many people. They should protect themselves and have friends. Educate children not to indulge in online dating and chatting, not to randomly forward unconfirmed information or sensitive topics, and not to browse illegal websites. Children must know that their parents are their strong backing. If they are unlucky enough to face fraud, they should tell their parents at the first time and let adults deal with it.
