One in three children cannot live without the Internet. This is one of the findings in recent research from global market research company Synovate.

In Taiwan, about 26% of children use the Internet for over three hours every day. This ratio significantly increases to 50.2% over the weekend. In the United States, 90% of teens are online. In Singapore, 68% of youth are engaged in social networking. In the Philippines, 19% of kids who are 13 to 17 are into Facebook. In South Korea, 15% of children and teenagers are addicted to Internet/videogames.

One in 10 parents say their child has experienced cyberbullying. In Indonesia, 53% of parents say they know a child who has experienced cyberbullying.

Want some scarier statistics?

In South Korea, 90% of children are exposed to obscene material by the age of 12, and in Taiwan, 25% of children have been exposed to pornography on the Internet.

Closer to home, CyberSecurity Malaysia – the national cyber security specialist centre under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Mosti) – in October last year said that six out of 10 parents are unaware of their children's online activities. Additionally, 90% of the youngsters have experienced some form of threat on the Internet.

At a Trend Micro briefing today, Myla Pilao, director of Core Technology Marketing from TrendLabs, said that because kids today are exposed to technology from a tender age, there is a need for parents to be extra vigilant.

Children as young as two already know how to navigate an tablet PC or even play games on their parents' phones.

In an average Malaysian home in the city, there might be two smartphones, at least one computer, possibly two, a few mobile devices and perhaps a gaming device.

These mobile gadgets in a Wifi-enabled home is a recipe for instant access to the Internet, and immediate access to predators and paedophiles.

As such, parents should take extra precaution to protect their kids.

“Kids have been given a lot of freedom and have been enabled with devices to use the Internet very freely,” explained Pilao.

“The nature of children, similar to adults, too, is to share a lot of information. We also found out that the kids are sharing too much information. The top two things that they often do online is to change a lot of information that is publicly available, such as their habits and schools, and uploading pictures.”

The network antivirus and Internet security company suggests parents take the 3R approach:

Relate – Explain to kids the differences between legitimate applications and advertisements so that they are aware and won't click on the wrong item.

Parents should also make sure they are on their kids' Facebook networks so they can read their posts and comments.

Relearn – Parents should learn new technologies such as how to use security tools and new social networks so that they can regulate content. This is even more important if the child is more tech-savvy than the parent.

Regulate – Yes, you need to control and limit access. That means using applications that will limit what your kids can do online – be it on the phone, the iPad or any other tablet, or notebook PC.

Trend Micro also suggests that parents turn off the default Wifi connection on these gadgets so that the kids do have to ask for permission if they want to go online.

The company also discourages the uploading and tagging of photos of kids, moreso if the tags have the children's full names. Also discouraged is the uploading of photos of kids in bathing suits. Imagine what would happen if paedophiles got their hands on those photos!

For more information and tips on safety online for kids, go to us.trendmicro.com/us/about/internet-safety-for-kids/.