Sextortion is one of the fastest-growing threats facing kids online — and it rarely begins with a stranger hacking a phone. It usually starts with a friendly conversation, built on compliments and trust, before it turns coercive. Offenders target teens of every background, and criminal groups increasingly focus on boys in their mid-teens. The tactic …
No parent wants to imagine it. But if a predator has reached your child online, the way you respond in the first hours matters more than almost anything else. Panic, blame, or shutting down every device is understandable — and often the exact opposite of what protects your child or preserves the evidence. The most …
Online grooming rarely begins with anything scary. In most cases it starts with kindness — a compliment on a post, a shared interest, a friend request that seems harmless. That is exactly what makes it so hard to recognize. The person building trust slowly is often careful, patient, and good at seeming like a friend. …
Sextortion has become one of the fastest-growing dangers kids face online. It is a form of online child sexual exploitation where someone threatens to share a sexual image or video unless the victim hands over more explicit content, money, gift cards, or follows other demands. It is not rare, and it is not the child’s …
When parents picture online predators, they often imagine a stranger behind a fake profile. The truth is more common and closer to home: it’s the adult who slowly becomes a trusted “friend” through messages, games, and shared interests. And the single strongest shield against that isn’t a monitoring app — it’s an open, ongoing conversation. …
Sextortion is one of the fastest-growing online crimes against minors. The FBI reports that financial sextortion, where a predator tricks a child into sending explicit images, then threatens to leak them unless the victim pays, jumped 20% in a six-month stretch ending in March 2023. From October 2021 to March 2023, the FBI and Homeland …
When we talk about online predators, most of us picture a single adult pretending to be someone else. That picture is only half the story. The FBI has flagged a tactic called group grooming, where predators work together in teams to target children online. Here is how it works. Groups of adults pose as kids …
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 …
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 …
Virtual reality headsets are becoming common in American households, and with them comes a new frontier for online predators. A 2022 survey found that 26% of teens already own a VR headset, and the immersive nature of the metaverse creates new risks for child grooming that every parent should understand. According to a detailed analysis …