If you have posted a photo of your child's first day at school or shared an image of them blowing out the candles on a birthday cake, you've probably put them at risk of having their email or bank account hacked.

"As a parent, you've potentially leaked the first school and date of birth of your child and these are some of the facts used by many organisations to verify that you are who you say you are," said academic director of the Australian Computing Academy James Curran, who co-authored the Australian digital technologies curriculum.

Hannah Crowe-Palmer and Meggie Boyle, in year 8 at St Scholastica's College, completing the first cyber security challenge. Credit:ION Creative

Associate Professor Curran has helped develop a set of challenges under the Schools Cyber Securities Challenges program that will help high school students learn about the risks posed by social media and other online activities from the other side by acting as hackers.

The first challenge, which was launched on Tuesday and is available for free to all schools, gives students mock social media accounts, banking applications and online shopping accounts and asks them to extract personal information.