Ask Marian

I’ve long given business and leisure travelers the same advice when they set off on a trip – keep your eye on your computers and mobile devices,  be cautious on public wifi networks,  avoid connecting computers or memory sticks to shared computers and avoid internet café computers if you want your social network and other account logins to stay safe.

Which all means if you want to stay connected on the road, you’ve got to be pretty independent. There are techniques for using your cell phone to create a wireless hotspot that your laptop or other devices can share. You can purchase a small wireless hotspot device to power up as many as five devices in a hotel room or national park. There are even SD cards for your camera that can wireless upload photos in a snap. With a little planning your travel and associated tech and connectivity needs don’t mean a lowering of your security standards.

Calling all teen app developers! There’s a great contest to create an app specifically to address one of the biggest challenges in stopping the scourge of cyberbullying, getting bystanders to speak up. We’ve long known that one of the best ways to change a culture is to promote the right behaviors. Psychologists refer to this as social norming. The social norms approach has been used to curtail drinking on university campuses. In effect, by raising awareness of positive behavior, we can reduce the participation levels in negative behavior such as drinking or cyberbullying.

Do you have a teen about to head out to college? If you do (as do I) you’ve got loads on your mind about helping them pick a school, consider different majors, maybe even discuss possible career options. And then there's the daunting worry about paying for college which has never been more expensive! There are loads of little details to settle and just one is making sure they are set up with a safe, functional computer.  If your teen is like mine, they just aren’t very good at maintaining security software, running the update service for the operating system and other important programs and I’d bet they’ve never backed the computer up.

With more than 840 million registered users, Facebook has long been everyone’s favorite online location. We update our status, check in to our favorite shops and restaurants, play social games, post family photos and live our lives increasingly in the top global social networking space. With this popularity, Facebook has realized they can do more to help educate members about the best ways to remain protected while enjoying everything Facebook has to offer.

Today, Facebook and Symantec announce a great partnership. Facebook has a security site, the Facebook AV Marketplace, where new-to-Norton Facebook users can download a free 6-month copy of our flagship Norton AntiVirus for either a Mac or a PC. So if you aren’t using any security on your computer, or you’ve wanted to try Norton for free, now is a great time to do so. You can learn more at the Facebook Security Blog, 

Password management isn’t particularly new. Most of us make half-hearted attempts at creating tough ones that no one could guess. But then we discover we can’t remember them.  So you hit the “Forgot My Password” link on site after site. Then you probably graduated to the most popular but terrible method, writing passwords on slips of paper on your desk. I’ve even visited offices where passwords are taped to the computer monitor. Not good, people, not good at all.

Back in January, I blogged that our terrific Norton Identity Safe was now designed to be mobile. And we had it in beta for a while, allowing testers like me to give a whirl and try logging in to accounts using our iPads and other mobile devices. I can tell you that using Norton Identity Safe as a mobile app is great. I can be upstairs in my home, ordering products online and logging into accounts with ease. I can access subscription websites or sign into secure work sites without remembering all those complicated password configurations or even having to type them on those little touch screens. It’s not like there’s spell check for passwords, is there? No wonder we think we’ve forgotten our password when we probably just mistyped on those itty bitty keyboards.  With Norton Identity Safe, there’s no typing, just click the icon for your desired website. The program fills in your user name and password, encrypting it so no one can spy on your information.

The Flashback Trojan, the one that seemed to spread like wildfire, infecting an estimated 1% of Macs around the world, continues to cause trouble. Symantec researchers estimate the malware is still on as many as 270,000 systems. Not all Mac owners run security software, and many fail to install computer and program security patches when they become available. “Flashback” is a flash point in internet security history because Mac owners realize they need to attend to the same security precautions as PC owners.

Norton has just released a free tool that Mac owners can download and run to both check for Flashback on their system and remove it, neatly and cleanly. Then, whether your system was infected or not, you should install and use internet security software, such as Norton AntiVirus for Mac or Norton Internet Security for Mac.  And after that, get into the habit of installing patches and security updates for your operating system and other programs.

Don't let your interest in the 100 year anniversary of the Titanic disaster or the re-release of the blockbuster film in 3-D tempt you to click where you shouldn't. Cybercrminals, as usual, are monitoring trends and poisoning popular search terms. The most dangerous terms this morning are anything related to finding the film online to download. Just clicking on a search result might lead a person to a dangerous website where malware can be dropped onto your computer. 

Dangerous terms include: 

• Titanic full movie free download
• Titanic full movie free download torrent
• Titanic Kate Winslet nude
• Titanic movie downlaod

So what to do, film fans? Be careful what you click and use security tools that evaluate search results, helping you steer clear of danger. A great way to go is use Norton's Safe Web, available in your Norton security software and as a free toolbar. 

Absolutely superb.” “Fantastic.” “This is everything I was looking (and waiting) for.” “A lot easier”. “Super easy”. “Thank you!”

Those glowing remarks are actual customer statements about a brand new security service, actually the industry’s first security membership service, called Norton One. This ground breaking new program makes managing security for all the devices in your home easy and understandable. PC’s? Mac’s? Smart phones? Tablets? All covered. Norton One is designed to help the already overburdened and busy consumer take care of managing all the various tech stuff in your home. And Norton One matches you with 24/7 dedicated support personnel who are standing by to help you sort out any of your toughest tech issues. Best of all, Norton One gives you the assurance that your computers will stay virus free!

Have you had your credit card “hacked”? Meaning, did you find some charges on a bill that weren’t yours? Or did your credit card bank contact you about some unusual activity in your account? Not only has this happened to me in the last few months, but in speaking with friends and colleagues, it seems to be happening more and more frequently.

If you want to present to a group of parents but need a slide deck to give you a head's start, feel free to use mine http://www.slideshare.net/marianmerritt/internet-safety-presentation-for-parents

If you’ve got a pre-teen or tween daughter on email, then they are getting chain letters. Most of these aren’t too different from the ones we used to send in the postal mail: you have to add names to the list and forward the message to others; you have to take action quickly or “bad” things will happen to you; if you do participate, good things will happen to you, and so on. The list of threats or treats varied but the basic premise was the same; follow a series of instructions created by a stranger, share your personal contact information with strangers and do so quickly, before you have time to think about it.

We parents can recognize the potential for harm here. We want our children to think BEFORE they act. Or in the language of the National Cyber Security Alliance’s internet safety slogan, “Stop. Think. Connect.” Crossing the street gets a similar cautionary instruction to “Stop. Look. Listen” before proceeding.

I don’t like chain letters and here are five reasons why:

Yesterday, I joined a group of adult volunteers from all over Los Angeles for a day of training in how to safely take scouts on overnight camping trips. We were expertly taught the safe ways to use and maintain the equipment for propane lighting, wood fires and charcoal cooking, even chopping wood! The entire concept is to teach the adult leaders so they can in turn teach the girls on how to safely use all this potentially dangerous equipment.

So that got me thinking. Why do we give so much attention to the potential harm of things like hatchets, propane tanks, and fire-making? Because we so rarely work with these materials, we lack confidence in our ability to use them correctly, let alone safely. It’s important to get training and education so we can keep our kids safe.

If you then think about technology, and all the ways it can get us in trouble, even danger, why don’t we have similar education programs for adults so we can in turn teach our kids about using computers, mobile devices and the internet with safety and confidence? Is it, perhaps, because we use these devices every day for many hours at a time, we feel comfortable? Or just that no one is making us get educated first ourselves. I would love to hear your thoughts. Join me on Twitter, @marianmerritt. 

I recently spoke to a group of elementary and middle school parents. We had so much to discuss, the session ran significantly overtime. Many didn’t leave until close to 10:30 pm on a school night! Clearly, we’re all passionate about figuring out how to make the joys of technology trump the dangers, but sometimes it’s really hard to do. And with a group of parents like this one, there’s a big range of knowledge about the various online issues, the methods and technology available to help and how to use it. So most of the time, I felt more like a referee helping the other parents educate each other which was terrific!

So what were some of the top anxiety producing issues?

Usually any heroic Norton Online Family story is about how using it can help parents see patterns in their children’s online behavior or reinforce their trust in their children’s good choices. Today we have a story of how Norton Online Family stopped a team of crooks in their tracks. You’re probably as surprised as I was.

When you started using Norton Online Family, you saw there are two components, the online portal, or account, that Mom or Dad set up, and the Norton Safety Minder application that runs on the child’s computer. That little application is the piece that reinforces the House Rules you’ve set with your kids and monitors website visits, online search activity, social network logins and so much more. And those features will be important to this story, so please read on.

Smart phones, Wi-Fi, social networks – we’re doing more online than ever before. In fact, being constantly connected to our technology via mobile devices and online accounts is just part of our daily lives. Are you aware of the potential for cybercrime because of what you do, the devices you use, and important security steps you might be overlooking?

Today, Norton released the results of our 2012 Riskiest Online City study. We evaluated a combination of ten risk factors that might increase a person’s risk for cybercrime. The risk factors included each city’s real world cybercrime data from Symantec research and consumer data such as the amount of time spent online, availability of public Wi-Fi networks, adoption of social networking and use of smart phones. By crunching the numbers and evaluating the per capita rankings, Norton and partner Sperlings’ BestPlaces came up with the list of America’s 50 riskiest online cities.

Two studies each arrived at the opposite conclusion.

Social networking is bad for you:

Social networking is good for you: 

And in just plain weird science news: your brain’s physical structure may correlate with your method of using social networks.

Most of you know how much I like our Norton Online Family parental control software. Not only is it very easy to use but it just works. Each parent can find the balance they want between limiting dangerous or inappropriate online content, setting boundaries around the appropriate amount of time spent online and allowing our the protection to adjust with our children’s developing maturity and skill. The Norton Online Family team has designed it to respect parent and child relationships, to encourage communication about safe Internet use and to help reinforce House Rules. House Rules have been shown to decrease the chance a young person encounters online risk. How marvelous when good parenting skills combine with free technology to help our young people enjoy the Internet in safety.

As our children increasingly access the internet via mobile devices, a new challenge in helping port those House Rules to these devices has arisen. 1 in 3 children access the web on a mobile device, be it a cell phone, tablet or other item. Today we introduce a great additional tool in Norton Safety Minder: Mobile Edition. The Norton Safety Minder is the small application each computer protected with your Norton Online Family account must have. The new Norton Safety Minder: Mobile Edition is the small application for your Android mobile device.

It’s staggering, really, how many passwords we each use on a daily basis. I’ve been thinking a lot about passwords these days, because we have a really cool product coming out, but hold that thought: how many times a day are you forced to remember, correctly enter and secure an account with a password?

I have a password on my phone, on my laptop, for my VPN (virtual private network) that allows me to securely work from home and of course my social network and micro-blog. I even have an app on my phone for my new electric car so I check the battery charge via our home network…and THAT has a password. Every one of my shopping sites, my work accounts like our benefits website, my bank, travel websites, etc. I probably manage more than 100 account names and passwords. Now about 20 of those I use daily while the remainder I might access only once in a while.

The idea that your online reputation could impact your college career is not a new one. Vanessa Van Petten, of RadicalParenting.com, says when she was a student tour guide at Emory University in Atlanta, she would friend visitors on the campus tour in order to review their social networking pages for the admissions office.  And that was in 2007! As the years go by, this practice of checking on your digital dossier becomes increasingly common.

Whenever I have the privilege to speak to a group of school parents, I often witness a disappointing turnout. The same 20 or so parents, the ones who show up to all the meetings and seem to “run” the school, are the ones who turn up. Often, it’s difficult for people to openly ask about the issues they encounter with their children on the Internet. It can be embarrassing to admit your 7-year old son is doing web searches on terms like “porn” and “boobs”. Yet, how can someone like me get the information across and address the topmost concerns of a school community if we don’t get a good level of participation from all the parents and have an environment where honesty leads?

Did you get a tech toy or give one to your children for the holidays? You are so generous! But I have three words for you: passwords, theft and malware! What!? What did you say? Those three words should represent your focus for making those new or hand-me-down devices safer and more secured in the New Year. Here’s how:

“Why won’t it print??”

“What’s taking this thing so long?”

“Plug-in? What’s a plug-in?”

As the weather turns colder, and our families spend more time at home, there’s usually one topic we can all agree on: there’s something wrong with the computer. Too slow? Prone to crashing? Fan running far too hot or loud on your laptop or desktop? For many of these common computing woes it might seem the only thing to do is chuck the computer and get a new one .Some people take the concept of “chucking” to the literal extreme. Take a look:

For every one of my friends who thinks they might be sharing too much personal information, there are several who seem to think every fleeting thought of theirs is worthy of being published and shared. How about shouted from a rooftop or sung in an opera? Well today, that time has come. It’s time to celebrate the regular lives of regular folks in a very non-regular way...with drama – or in this case, theatre!

Facebook users can sign up now to participate in Norton’s Stuff Theatre on November 30th. Try to keep a straight face as you picture your Tuesday post of “the guy on the bus next to me won’t shut up!” as performed by a Shakespearean actress, or how it would look if the thread that grew in response to your latest baby photo was acted out by puppets. It’s time to have some fun and laugh a little at our own human foibles.

Cyberbaiting? It might not be as common as grade school bullying but if you can imagine kids in a classroom conspiring to misbehave in order to get a teacher to lose their temper, you’re starting to get the idea of what cyberbaiting is all about. Next, the students take out their cell phones and video the raging adult, later uploading the clip to a video sharing or social networking site. The result is called “cyberbaiting” and, though still a relatively little known phenomenon, it takes center stage in the latest edition of the Norton Online Family Report. Norton finds that 1 in 5 teachers has either had this cyberbaiting happen to a colleague or to them personally. Examples of such videos can be found on most video sharing sites with a search phrase of “teacher loses it.” It’s easy to imagine the professional embarrassment such videos might cause and the disruption to the classroom environment as well.

Just like adults, kids get tricked all the time, online and off. Maybe it starts with that favorite uncle trick as old as the hills, which begins with “pull my finger!” Ugh. Go online to any law enforcement, internet security or government agency website and you’ll find really sad stories of good people suckered by scams that looked so real. In a tough economy our kids want to help us, don’t they? And sometimes they try to help us save money, or make money and fall for some of these frauds themselves.

So what is Malware anyway? Malware – or malicious software – is a catchall category for many types of Internet-borne problems that can land on your computer and devices, helping cybercriminals to your data, your network, to take control over your computer and other nightmares. It may include viruses found on infected websites, worms spread through emailed attachments, Trojans downloaded in screensavers, or infected applications and programs. Watch this introductory and humorous video with your children to get started: 

In the new EU Kids Online Report, a fascinating study of kids across Europe, some of the key recommendations include some big surprises; such as online risk may actually carry some benefits for our kids. The position the researchers hold is that by experiencing risk and learning coping strategies, kids actually become wiser and more resilient, in the same way that a driver who learns how to manage traffic is a better one than someone who only learns to drive on empty streets. In effect, the parents who are most engaged, filtering and monitoring may be preventing their children from experiencing the educational side of risk (note: I’m not saying harm, just risk).

Normally in this space I pass along tips and guidance for online safety issues. Today, I want to remind you of an offline safety issue, namely how you can communicate with family and friends during a natural disaster. Whether you live in a tornado alley, hurricane zone or near an earthquake fault, Mother Nature’s reach is widespread and often surprising in her capriciousness. Note the August 2011 earthquake in Virginia as an example.

The US government has some excellent reminders of what systems are most vulnerable during a crisis, whether due to a loss of electrical power or simply the increased volume of messages that will be sent. Among their suggestions is this retro nugget: keep a dedicated landline phone in your house, in addition to the more convenient and modern wireless versions as well as your cellular phone. If your area is hit with a power outage that lasts beyond the battery or charging ability for your wireless or cell phones, you’ll be glad to have this old-fashioned yet quite capable phone system. Wired, landline phones actually receive their minimal amount of electrical power directly through the physical phone line. So even when you’re sitting in the dark, using candles and flashlights, you may be surprised to find your plain old rotary or touch tone Princess phone still allows you to make and receive calls. And what a lifeline that could potentially be. Note: some emergency systems require a touch tone pulse so the caller can select “1” or “2” for different issues or languages. In those situations, a touch tone phone might be the best choice.

The Internet is full of tricks and treats for all of us. Even web-savvy adults fall for online scams (one of the top three types of cybercrime according to the recent Norton Cybercrime Report) but, with a little education, we can all learn methods for avoiding these problems and staying safe.

What about our children? You may be doing a great job teaching your child about the need to be kind online, to limit the sharing of personal information and how to use security and privacy settings appropriately, but are you teaching your children not to open the door for the Internet’s bogeymen?

It is increasingly common for our social media accounts to get hacked. Scammers have a variety of ways for tricking us into allowing them access and it’s best to stay aware and prevent this from happening to you. It’s no fun to recover a stolen account and the time it takes can provide the crook just enough time to spread the problem to your friends and colleagues.

I’ve even worked with a group of local teens whose social network accounts were all hacked, seemingly by the same individual. Currently the matter is in the hands of law enforcement for this constitutes a criminal act. It’s not clear how the hacks occurred, whether the bad guy used software to eavesdrop on their logins, or sent malware to one that spread to the others. As the legal case comes to completion, I hope to find that out.

Today, I receive a message in my microblogging account with all the hallmarks of dangerous, account stealing spam. It was from an unknown person with the message: “I saw a real bad blog about you, you seen this?” and then included a link using a shortening service so I couldn’t determine where it might lead. I’ve been through this before so I went online to search the language of the message and confirmed my suspicions: dangerous account stealing spam. If you click the link in the message it takes you to a webpage that looks just like the authentic microblogging service’s login page.