Media Release
18 July 2011
Parents who allow children and young adults to have free reign of the computer, and who don’t apply meaningful cyber-security measures at home are putting themselves at risk of identity theft, and threatening the family’s good credit rating, a national credit rating repairer warns.
Director of MyCRA Credit Repairs, Graham Doessel says experience is showing us it is not enough for people to simply download anti-virus software and assume they are protected against identity theft.
“Every day there’s more and more reported cases of identity theft via the cyber-world, with criminals gaining access to personal information online, in order to commit identity fraud in the victim’s name.”
“While the internet is an essential tool for children to be competent with, parents have to be realistic about what kind of protection they are affording their family when they allow the control of the family computer to rest solely with their child,” he says.
Mr Doessel says the dangers of children downloading viruses, participating in scams, releasing credit card details and disclosing personal information and passwords to criminals can all be minimised by parents taking an active role in their child’s internet use, and constantly updating their own cyber-awareness.
“Gone are the days of people joking about how their children’s knowledge of the internet has surpassed their own – the scary fact is it’s happened. The threat of criminals taking advantage of a parent’s lack of expertise is real, and people should do all they can to stay ahead of what is becoming the fastest growing crime in the country,” he says.
A U.S. study released earlier this year, showed that of the 20 million minors who actively used the social networking site ‘Facebook’ in the past year, 7.5 million—or more than one-third—were younger than 13 and not supposed to be able to use the site.
“Among young users, more than 5 million were 10 and under, and their accounts were largely unsupervised by their parents,” the report revealed.
It also revealed that one million children were harassed, threatened, or subjected to other forms of cyber-bullying on Facebook in the past year.
“Clearly, using Facebook presents children and their friends and families with safety, security, and privacy risks,” the report said.
Mr Doessel says fraudsters are often extremely good at extracting personal information from adults, so doing the same with children would be a walk in the park.
“The amount of personal information that many young people have freely available for viewing on Facebook is frightening. We may say it is harmless, but what’s to say fraudsters can’t sit on that information and wait until their victims come of age to commit fraud in their name?”
“Other parents alarmingly give over their credit card details to their children to use when downloading music or games, or use the same passwords for ITunes that they may use for their bank accounts. This information in the wrong hands can see someone taking out credit in the victim’s name, and completely destroying their financial future” he says.
Mr Doessel says a major downfall to being an identity theft victim is not only the initial loss of monies, but if the fraud sees accounts in the victim’s name going undetected and unpaid past 60 days, a person’s credit file can be ruined for 5-7 years due to defaults.
“It need not be major fraud to be a massive blow to the identity theft victim. Unpaid accounts for as little as $100 can have the same negative impact on someone’s ability to obtain credit as a missed mortgage payment. So any misuse of someone’s credit file can be extremely significant,” he says.
For parents who want to educate themselves about the risks of cyber-crime, the Government has put together the CyberSmart website, encouraging parents and kids to be aware of the dangers the internet may pose for children.
The Government recommends the close monitoring of all children’s internet use. Some of the other recommendations it makes include:
– Be aware of and involved in children’s internet use. Bookmark a list of ‘favourites’ for them. Encourage children to share new websites and explore together. Assist them whenever they need to disclose personal information.
– Talk to children about personal information and why it is special.
– Consider creating a family ‘fun’ email account separate from all other accounts for the child’s use. This way it can be deleted if misused.
– Consider using filters, labels and safe zones to manage children’s
– Install and update anti-virus and other e-security software to restrict unauthorised access to data on the home computer and protect that data from corruption. Turn firewall on, set computer to automatic scan and update regularly.
If people suspect identity theft has affected their credit file, they can contact MyCRA Credit Repairs www.mycra.com.au for help with obtaining a copy of their credit report, and removing any discrepancies from their credit file.
/ENDS
Please contact:
Lisa Brewster – Media Relations
Mob: 0450 554 007 media@mycra.com.au
Graham Doessel – Director
Ph: 07 3124 7133
MyCRA Credit Repairs is Australia’s leader in credit rating repairs. We permanently remove defaults from credit files.
Links:
Recently, the Australian Institute of Criminology updated its reporting on cybercrime on its website http://www.aic.gov.au/crime_types/in_focus/cybercrime.aspx
This is what it said:
“Children using websites, chatrooms and social networking sites may be exposed to crimes such as cyberstalking, cyberbullying and cybergrooming. A study by Monash University found that 72 per cent of surveyed Australian middle school students had experienced unwanted or unpleasant contact by strangers on their social networking profile. Illegal material, such as photos that exploit children, is also widely distributed online.”
Yet another reason to ensure our children are adequately supervised while online.