The foreign custom of Halloween has become a trend in Greece in recent years, with more and more themed events or parties organized for the night of October 31st, while online offers of " Halloween" are also increasing. 
As with any similar holiday season, cybercriminals are looking to exploit unsuspecting children, especially with online scams and social media fraud . To make Halloween less scary for young Internet users , ESET offers five key security tips for parents.
Be careful with site and forum registrations . Children flock to gaming sites and social sites and forums, where, of course, registration is required. Here, parents have a dual role. First, to help children create accounts with strong and unique passwords, and then, to teach them to be careful about where they enter these credentials, talking to them about the danger of phishing emails. This education will be particularly helpful, as they are very likely to face phishing attacks later in life, especially if they enter gaming sites and social media .
Download apps with caution. There is a growing trend of mobile apps with Halloween. Even if they are not entirely malicious, many of them, especially those aimed at children, are linked to activities such as tracking and behavioral advertising. If something as simple as a game or educational app requires access to messages, calls and/or location information, parents should be suspicious. Downloading apps only from official stores, researching what kind of permissions a particular app requests, will ensure that children are protected from the collection of their personal information.
Is it really free? Ads for free Halloween games and ringtones, especially if they are offered for free, can hide malware. It is common for children to click on a malicious ad and unwittingly infect their computers or smartphones. Reliable security software that has multiple layers of protection and receives frequent automatic updates is an easy and effective way for parents to protect their children and their entire family from such traps.
Proper use of social media. Halloween gives a strong "presence" on social networking platforms, which makes them extremely unsafe for children's safety. Parents should constantly remind their children of the need to implement strict privacy settings, not to share private information, to stay away from strangers and to remember that everything they do online leaves a digital footprint.
We trust after we verify . Children are often very good at hiding their online activities. This is where parental control tools can help, monitoring young users and preventing them from wandering around the internet uncontrollably. Comprehensive security software has such tools, but all major operating systems, both on computers and mobile phones, allow some level of parental control these days.
