These Seemingly Innocent Search Terms Could Lead Kids to Malware-Filled Websites

30.10.2023 - 20:57 / pcmag.com / Chris Hemsworth / Taylor Swift

Many of us like to think we're web-savvy enough to know when something is fishy (or phishy). Kids don’t have that same wealth of experience and web-surfing wisdom that older users have accumulated–and the bad guys know it. They’re willing to take advantage by planting malicious code on sites that your child would otherwise be innocently looking for.

That’s the finding of some research by the service Home Security Heroes. The company put together several online search queries based on things kids like, using lists like the top 100 animated movies and animated TV shows, best Halloween films, bestselling games, even favorite celebrities, all sourced from sites like Box Office Mojo, IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Wikipedia, and even the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards nominations going back to 2019. It ran them through Google Trends to see what were the most popular, then took the extra step to run many of the search results that returned through a website security check called Sucuri SiteCheck, which is a cybersecurity firm owned by  GoDaddy.

The results are worrying: Two-thirds of the pop-culture terms that Home Security Heroes tested had the potential to infect a kid’s device with malware.

Top terms that popped with the problem include Boss Baby, Beetlejuice, Pokemon, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and even big-name celebs like Anne Hathaway, Chris Hemsworth, and the queen herself, Taylor Swift. Those latter three all had over a 75% chance of being used for malware delivery.

Home Security Heroes generated several infographics with the top ten potentially dangerous search terms in each category. You can see a few below:

You can see all the rest in the full report.

Do these results mean your kid can’t ever do a search? No, but make sure they’re savvy to the downsides of the internet. You can also check things out with effective parental control software. 

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