ABSTRACT

As children increasingly navigate the digital world for education, social recreation, and interaction, they face a growing spectrum of cyber threats that exploit child vulnerabilities rather than technical flaws. This paper reframes cybersecurity as a child rights issue, focusing on how behavioral factors such as curiosity, trust, and limited digital awareness make young users particularly susceptible to online exploitation. Employing a multidisciplinary methodology, the study draws on case studies, global cybersecurity incident reports, behavioral research, and policy analysis to examine how malicious social engineering infiltrates child-centric platforms, especially gaming and social media. It proposes a human-centered cybersecurity framework that integrates age-appropriate digital literacy, accessible safety tools, and ethical design principles to safeguard digital well-being. The paper advocates for treating cybersecurity as an essential component of childhood, calling for coordinated action among educators, policymakers, technology designers, and guardians to build safer, more principled online ecosystems for vulnerable populations.