Almost 20% of Children's Social Media Accounts Fall Victim to Hacking

Social media account hacking is the most likely threat Russian children face online, with 19 percent of young Internet users falling victim to hackers, a poll by the ESET Internet security company revealed Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to the poll, conducted by surveying 1,200 parents in Russia, 11 percent of interviewees complained that their kids added suspicious contacts as friends on social media, including fake users and spammers.

Another 10 percent of respondents lost money due to children subscribing to pay-to-play games and expensive services.

Six percent of the respondents said their children had received message with links to malware, while 3 percent said scam and cyberbullying were another online threat.

Less than a third of respondents (29 percent) said their families never faced problems on social media, while 19 percent of interviewees named access to videos with adult content, spam newsletters and installment of fake mods for computer games among other problems.