Parents' Awareness and Readiness for Smart Devices' Cybersecurity

摘要

Smart Devices technologies are evolving and introducing more cybersecurity challenges while developing. One of the cybersecurity challenges in the social aspect is the high level of smart devices exposure for children and teens, with the biggest burden of protecting the children lies on the parents. This paper presents an assessment of the current children level of exposure to cybersecurity threats and measuring the awareness and readiness of parents to deal with these threats. Searching through available literature, the research topic of children protection from smart devices revealed either limited or outdated content considering the nature of the topic field development over time. In addition, there is a lack of information found on the chosen focus which are children aged six years or below. This research directed to explore these areas by measuring the level of smart devices cybersecurity exposure for children with age six years or below using exploratory surveying methods and quantitative questionnaires to collect the data from parents. Results showed 98.2% of children are exposed to at least one smart device and more than 92.2% of children are exposed to social media applications. Around half of respondents allow their children to play games which are not suitable for their age even though some are monitoring the children while playing and others are checking the content of the games. The key findings of this study shall be used to design strategies of child cyber protection and find a solution to help minimizing cybersecurity risks.