Rise in online grooming highlights need for early prevention, expert says
Ahead of Safer Internet Day on Feb. 10, Virginia Tech expert Jin-Hee Cho shares practical steps families can take to protect kids online.
As young people spend more time online, experts say preventing cybergrooming starts with understanding how it happens and equipping youth with tools to recognize risks early. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reports that cases of adults soliciting minors online increased 192 percent from 2023 to 2024.
Ahead of Safer Internet Day on Feb. 10, Virginia Tech expert Jin-Hee Cho shared tips for keeping kids safe from online predators.
Recognize cybergrooming
According to Cho, cybergrooming is a long-term process in which an offender builds trust and emotional connection with a minor online to enable sexual exploitation, coercion, or abuse.
“It can happen anywhere — on social media, messaging apps, online games, group chats — and more often leads to dangerous in-person interactions later,” Cho said. “It isn’t about one inappropriate message. It’s about a relationship that develops over time and gradually crosses boundaries, which is why it can be so hard to recognize early.”
Don’t rely on parental controls
“While helpful, controls alone cannot prevent grooming that moves into private or encrypted spaces,” said Cho.
Social media platforms with private messaging features, online gaming communities with chat functions, and platforms that use recommendation algorithms to connect users are some of the riskiest spaces.
“Offenders often try to move conversations into private spaces as quickly as possible,” she said. “That’s where visibility and safeguards drop off.”
Start conversations about online safety early and revisit them often.
“Open, ongoing conversations are one of the strongest protective factors we have,” Cho said.
Co-create boundaries with teens around privacy, secrecy, and sharing personal information, and normalize reporting concerns to trusted adults.
A new AI tool for cybergrooming prevention
Cho and a group of students from Virginia Tech’s Department of Computer Science are developing an AI-based tool that models how cybergrooming escalates over time, helping teens learn to recognize warning signs and exit unsafe situations.
“Our goal is not to monitor teens’ private conversations,” Cho said. “It’s to help them build the skills to recognize risks themselves and respond safely.”
About Cho
Jin-Hee Cho is an associate professor in the College of Engineering and the Stephen and Cherye Tyndall Moree Computer Science Junior Faculty Fellow. She is the director of Trustworthy Cyberspace Lab, and her work features a transformative approach to uncertainty-aware decision making that integrates machine learning with belief/evidence theory, addresses pivotal security challenges, and significantly advances the research frontier in artificial intelligence for cybersecurity.
Schedule an interview
To schedule an interview with Jin-Hee Cho, contact Margaret Ashburn at mkashburn@vt.edu or 540-529-0814.
