Financial Sextortion Is a Growing Internet Predator Threat: What Parents Need to Know
Reports of online enticement targeting kids more than doubled in the first half of 2025. Here’s how predators use financial sextortion, and how to respond.
Reports of online enticement targeting kids more than doubled in the first half of 2025. Here’s how predators use financial sextortion, and how to respond.
Kids today don’t just use the internet — they live in it. They game, chat, shop, and socialize there, often with more confidence than the adults around them. But digital fluency is not the same as digital citizenship. A child can navigate an app flawlessly while still clicking risky links, oversharing personal details, or falling …
Screen time arguments. Secret app downloads. Late-night gaming sessions. If any of this sounds familiar, you are not alone — and there is a practical tool that can help. A family technology agreement is a simple written contract between parents and kids that sets clear expectations around device use, online behavior, privacy, and screen time. …
Online grooming is the process by which predators build trust with a child — and often their family — to gain access and control. It is not a single event but a gradual manipulation that can take weeks or months. Understanding how this process works is the first step in preventing it. Predators typically target …
The FBI is warning parents and caregivers about a growing threat from violent online networks that are actively targeting children and teenagers through gaming platforms, social media, and other online communities. Known collectively as the “764” network, these groups use platforms like Roblox, Minecraft, Discord, and Instagram to identify vulnerable young people, build trust with …
Every parent knows the basics: look both ways before crossing the street, don’t talk to strangers, say please and thank you. But when it comes to the digital world, many of us are figuring it out as we go. The reality is that kids today are online earlier and more often than any generation before, …
As technology becomes more embedded in children’s lives every year, parents face the challenge of balancing safety with independence. The National Cybersecurity Alliance recently published a guide to family tech rules built around expert input from child safety professionals, cybersecurity researchers, and parents themselves. Here are six practical rules that can make a real difference. …
Child sextortion is accelerating at an alarming rate. New data from the NSPCC reveals that Childline counselling sessions about financially motivated sexual extortion more than doubled in the past year, jumping from 120 cases in 2024/25 to 242 in 2025/26. Behind each number is a child — often a teenage boy, often targeted through gaming …
and help protect a child from further harm.
Every parent wants their kids to stay safe online, but technology evolves so fast that the old rules don’t always cut it anymore. A new guide from the National Cybersecurity Alliance offers a refreshingly practical set of family tech rules grounded in what real child safety experts, cybersecurity professionals, and parents are seeing every day. …