Beat the defense: experts have compiled a rating of mobile security services for children

Nowadays, children can use smartphones almost better than adults. But at the same time, they often simply cannot recognize scammers calling them and cybercriminals contacting them on the Internet. IT solutions come to the aid of them and their parents, which are designed to protect them from the dangers lurking in cellular networks. iKS-Consulting has compiled a rating of such products — they are offered to their customers by mobile operators. About which of them are the most reliable, convenient, and protect users from the greatest number of threats — in the material of Izvestia.

Who is better at protecting children from scammers?

Children and teenagers have become an independent audience for mobile services: They actively use smartphones, instant messengers, games, and online payments, but they are worse at recognizing social engineering and fraudulent scenarios than adults. This is stated in a study by iKS-Consulting, dedicated to protecting children from intruders in cellular networks. According to analysts, 92% of teenagers aged 14-17 are currently using smartphones. The younger children are, the fewer gadgets they have, but according to the data, even those who are 4-5 years old use them: about a third in this category have smartphones. At the same time, in 2025, about 13 thousand minors became victims of fraudsters, it also follows from the materials of iKS-Consulting. "The growth of fraudulent attacks on children shows that a child's smartphone has become a separate entry point for intruders. Therefore, the market needs specialized solutions that protect children not only from technical threats, but also from social engineering — calls, phishing, manipulation and involvement in fraudulent scenarios," the company's research says.

iKS-Consulting specialists have compiled a rating of comprehensive solutions offered by operators to protect children from fraudsters. MTS Junior became its leader, scoring 70.1 points. "MTS offers the best solution for ensuring comprehensive child safety when using a smartphone (Internet, voice communication). The offer is noticeably ahead of the rest of the participants due to the most balanced coverage of key areas of children's mobile security — call and network protection, geolocation, customer experience and categorical filtering of unwanted content," the authors of the study describe it.

MTS is followed by Beeline and Sberbank by a wide margin (48.9 points each). Beeline is stronger in call and network protection, cost control and parental control, but inferior in protection from unwanted content and geolocation scenario, according to iKS-Consulting. Sberbank, on the other hand, is stronger in geolocation and blocking unwanted content, but requires additional applications and settings, they believe.

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In third place is "Parental control" from Megafon (45.4 points). The service is good at covering scenarios of parental control and point blocking (applications, websites, messengers), but this is a separate service, not a children's tariff, so after applying penalty coefficients, the final score decreases, iKS-Consulting explains its evaluation system. Additional limitations include the need to install the application and configure it. In addition, not all of the stated functions work fully (for example, the websites that the child opens are not displayed in the application on the parent's phone), content protection only works in the Chrome browser, and call protection is possible when other services are connected, the researchers list.

"The strongest positions are occupied by integrated solutions, where protection is built into the tariff plan and covers several areas simultaneously — calls, Internet, geolocation, customer experience and parental control. Individual services may be strong in specific functions, but they lose out to comprehensive tariff offers in terms of completeness and ease of use," they conclude. The most complete set of functions originally included in the children's tariff is presented in the MTS Junior tariffs from MTS and Sberbank Kids from Sberbank Mobile, they add. At the same time, both proposals have limitations: for MTS, part of the scenario depends on the configuration of the family group, for Sberbank Kids, content protection is limited to individual platforms, as also indicated in the materials reviewed by Izvestia.

What does security consist of?

iKS-Consulting compares child protection services against fraudsters in several parameters — user experience, ease of parental access management, completeness of geolocation data, level of protection from unwanted content, and others. When evaluating the user experience, such parameters as, for example, the publicity of the terms of use of the service, the ease of subscribing to it, the quality of support, and the stability of work were taken into account. MTS Junior became the leader in this category: it was rated 87.5 points out of 100 possible. The high rating is associated with the completeness of functionality, high-quality support, stable operation, transparent cost and the absence of the need to install separate applications for the basic scenario, iKS-Consulting analysts list. At the same time, there are still restrictions when connecting child protection services, they specify.

In the "Parental Management" block, parameters such as the presence of a family group, options for monitoring the child's expenses, notifications, the ability to configure different scenarios for different children, and the like were evaluated. In addition to MTS Junior, Beeline and Sberbank Kids entered the top three — they all received 83 points out of 100. "All three solutions have a family group, allow the parent to manage settings, show the protection status, make it possible to set up rules for different children and have a clear scenario for the parent. The difficulties are related to limited notifications to the parent and insufficient cost control," iKS-Consulting emphasizes.

A full-fledged geolocation scenario should include not only location display, but also geofences, phone charge data, and protection against self-disabling notifications by a child, the authors of the study believe. They awarded 100 maximum points in the Geolocation category to the Parental Control of Megafon and Sberbank Kids. MTS Junior is in 2nd place (80 points). The solution determines the location, shows the phone charge and does not allow the child to turn off notifications, the report says. But there is also a limitation — the lack of notifications about entry and exit from the specified zones, which is why the geocontrol scenario is less complete, its authors considered.

At the same time, in the "Protection from unwanted content" block, for example, Junior is again above all (55 points). Its strong point is the built—in categorical filtering: the solution blocks 18+ content, gambling, as well as sites selling tobacco, alcohol and weapons, iKS-Consulting reports in its materials. Megafon Parental Control ranks second with 35 points. "Its protection model differs from MTS: the service is stronger as a tool for manual parental management of a child's digital environment. It allows you to restrict individual sites, applications, platforms, or messengers, as well as set up rules and age restrictions. However, categorical filtering works to a limited extent: 18+ content and gambling, betting, casinos are partially closed, but violence and dangerous content, sites selling tobacco, alcohol and weapons, as well as age-related content are not blocked. In addition, the locks only work in a specific browser, Chrome. Also, the parent's application is supposed to display the sites that the child has visited, but this function does not work," the authors of the study claim.

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The existing children's tariffs differ from adults primarily in that they contain restrictions on content and provide access only to children's Internet, says Eldar Murtazin, a leading analyst at Mobile Research Group. Other restrictions can be set, but the main disadvantage is that most parents simply do not know about these opportunities, he says. The expert considers the fact that children's SIM cards will soon appear in Russia, the status of which will be determined at the legislative level, to be an important step in protecting children from fraudsters and cyber threats.

— For children's tariffs and special solutions, it is important that the child is always in touch and can call certain numbers even with a negative balance: dad, mom, grandmother. At the same time, it should be possible to limit incoming calls — a "white list" so that only relatives can call the child. It is also important that all restrictions and lists are conveniently managed by parents," added Eldar Murtazin.

Even adults cannot fully protect themselves from fraud, and children are even more vulnerable in this regard, says Denis Kuskov, CEO of TelecomDaily. The availability of protection against it and other cyber threats, combined with high efficiency, is one of the major factors for many when choosing an operator for children, he said. The solutions currently offered on the Russian market can already protect users from most such attacks, the expert concludes.