Our kids being the tech mavens that they are, you’d think that they’d know all about cyberattacks and how not to fall prey to one. They don’t. And for a very simple reason: No one talks to them about it.

“Parents aren’t aware of the risks and therefore can’t explain them to their children, so the kids don’t act responsibly on their phones in terms of cyber,” explains Oleg Brodt, the chief innovation officer for cyber at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

“For example, they download apps from unsafe sources, they press links that come from people they don’t know, and they take photos that can often embarrass someone or even their future selves, and all this is happening on their mobile phone, which is very hackable.”

Neither teachers nor parents are familiar with the issue, let alone the solutions, he notes.

As the new school year starts, we caught up with Brodt, who heads research and development at Cyber@BGU, the umbrella organization for cybersecurity research and collaboration at BGU, to learn more on the issue of cyberattacks in the field of education.

Image: Reuters