For Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2025, Bitwarden partnered with ResearchScape to survey over 1,000 US parents with children ages 2 to 20 to understand how families navigate online safety. The findings reveal a growing disconnect: while parents express high concern about AI-enhanced threats and children's digital exposure, their own security practices and monitoring habits often fall short of protecting their families.
Children today are online earlier than ever, using tablets, smartphones, gaming devices, and smartwatches. Despite widespread awareness of risks like phishing, malware, and data breaches, consistent action remains limited. This survey highlights critical gaps in password security, parental monitoring, and education around emerging AI-driven scams.
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Young children are already online and at risk
Children as young as 3-5 years old are already online with their own devices, navigating the internet and inadvertently putting themselves at risk.
Nearly 80% of children ages 3-12 have their own internet-connected tablet, making device access nearly universal by early elementary school.
42% of parents with children ages 3-5 report their child has unintentionally shared personal information online, exposing the youngest users to significant privacy and security risks.
Over a quarter (28%) of 3-5 year-olds browse online with minimal or no supervision from their parents.
The Gen Z paradox: highest concern, lowest oversight
Gen Z parents express the most concern about their children's online safety, yet often take the least action to protect them.
80% of Gen Z parents fear their kids will fall victim to AI-enhanced online threats—the highest rate across all generations surveyed.
Despite this concern, 37% of Gen Z parents give their child full autonomy or only lightly monitor their online activity.
This lack of oversight correlates with the highest incident rates: Gen Z households reported the most malware infections (44%), unauthorized in-app purchases (41%), phishing attempts (40%), and unintentional data sharing (36%).
98% of Gen Z parents say they've had conversations with their kids about online safety, but monitoring and enforcement remain inconsistent.
See more findings about the security habits of different generations in the 2025 World Password Day survey.
Parents' own security habits create household vulnerabilities
While parents worry about their children's safety, many fail to model secure behavior themselves—creating risks that extend across the entire household. Previous research shows 72% of Gen Z adults reuse passwords despite 79% acknowledging the risks, a habit that compounds family-wide security weaknesses.
28% of Gen Z parents admit to sharing passwords verbally or through text or email, methods that leave credentials exposed to interception.
More than half of Gen Z parents (56%) do not use a password manager, and nearly two-thirds (64%) do not use a VPN for added protection.
Only 16% of families overall use a password manager with shared vaults to securely manage credentials across the household. Among Gen Z parents, this rises slightly to 25%, still leaving three out of four families without secure credential sharing.
AI scams heighten risks, but education lags
The rise of generative AI has made online threats harder to detect, yet many families haven't discussed how to spot these sophisticated scams.
78% of parents across all households are concerned about their child falling victim to an AI-enhanced scam that mimics voices, crafts personalized messages, or generates convincing phishing content.
Despite these concerns, nearly half (43%) of parents haven't talked with their kids about how to recognize AI-enabled threats.
44% of Gen Z parents report their child or family experiencing malware or a virus from downloads.
