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A new study came out last week and drew the kind of headlines that can make an internet safety advocate squirm. Here are a few: “If Your Kids Are Awake, They’re Probably Online!” “A Full Day’s Work Looking At Screens!” and “A Plugged In Generation Poses Problems For Parents!” The Kaiser Family Foundation study of children and teens found that media use is up dramatically, driven by mobile devices and multitasking. The average is 7 hours and 38 minutes of daily media consumption, including computer, TV, and texting. Factoring in the multitasking (overlapping use of texting while watching TV, for example) and the average total media consumption in that same 7 ½ hour period is 10 hours and 45 minutes. This report is the 3rd in a series of reports conducted by the foundation after a period of 5 year gaps. Read more...

If you want to be a pathetic, bottom feeding cybercriminal, just check Google’s Trend site to monitor what the public is interested in and poison the search results. What does that mean? It means infecting pages containing the key words people search on with malware so when unsuspecting victims click on the result in their Google, Ask, Bing, Yahoo or other search results, they’ll end up with more than the information they were looking for. We saw this most recently with the Haiti earthquake disaster, and today the cyberscum are using the upcoming 2010 Super Bowl to trick us. Read more...

It's an easy prediction; cybercriminals will pounce on the earthquake disaster in Haiti and try to trick you into giving them your money. Almost as soon as the earthquake hit yesterday, thousands of Twitter entries began to appear. The first were simply requests for more information. The next wave of "tweets" were more poignant, and were from friends and relations of people in Haiti seeking ways to contact their loved ones when the phone lines were out of order. Now, the third wave of messages, as we see the images and videos of devastation and death, is seeking financial support to relieve the suffering of the Haitian people. Here in the third wave is where the cybercriminals will hide. Read more...

On the heels of some office discussion about social networking "stalkers"; the ex-friends, ex-spouses and ex-romantic partners who abuse your Facebook or MySpace friend status to review your postings, comment on your photos, message your family and so on, two articles appeared this week about how to end a romantic relationship in the social media age. Perhaps it's something in the New Year/New Decade waters, but the comments from those who've been through it before have wisdom to share with those just now going through this painful experience. Read more...

Cybercrime is on the rise with a particularly strong interest in stealing from small business and non-profits, like your local church. Often these organizations are run by inexperienced financial and computer users or volunteers. With ever-stretched budgets, small business is often strapped to invest in security measures or training for their staff, so mistakes are made. And cybercriminals who are always looking for new targets are training their sights on the online financial transactions of such small groups. Salaries, customer payments, investments, wire transfers - it's all under attack. Read more...

Recently Facebook announced some changes to their privacy settings, intended to provide each user with greater control and less inadvertent sharing of their information. In the short term, what seems to have occurred is greater confusion and more sharing of profile data to the general public. Some of this is the natural friction of changes to a familiar environment and the good that will come out of all the millions of Facebook users confronting and considering their privacy choices is bound to be a good thing. Read more...

Stop being a cheap parent and give your kids a legal way to get music and videos. If you don't, you're contributing towards your child becoming a music pirate and possibly risking personal identity theft. Read more...

What started out as an ironic story line meant to educate about the foolishness of hate and racism from a "South Park" television episode, turned ugly as red-haired children in Southern California came home from middle school with bruises and crushed feelings. Their peers had created online groups to celebrate a fictional "National Kick A Ginger Day" (where the term "ginger" refers to red-haired people). The Facebook sites increased in numbers as school children signed on as "fans" of the effort. Some of these children were likely in on the joke, possibly having seen the episode of "South Park". Other children assuredly just joined in a group effort, as part of a pre-teen pack mentality, failing to question the purpose of this group or the wisdom in identifying with any promotion of hatred or violence. And then there's the question of the membership of children younger than 13 on Facebook to begin with. Read more...

A cybercriminal in the UK has been arrested for phishing attacks and theft of virtual goods from players of the online game, Runescape. As described in this online news story, the capture of this digital thief is the first of its kind. The case represents collaboration between the owners of the website and the e-crime's unit of the real world British Police. Read more...

If you are, like my friend Adrian, an iPhone user, you enjoy taking and uploading photos with this device. He recently found that some of his Tumblr photos were appearing on another Tumblr website with links to the geotagging information in the image. What this means is when you take a digital photo using the Apple software, it records your physical location on the planet as part of the data in the file. And using this data, a third party could map your location (when the photo was taken) and find you. Or at least get awfully close to where you were at that time. Read more...

As we move into the holiday season, it's our practice to take a look at security threats over the last year and give some thought to the year to come. I had the privilege of hosting a webcast roundtable today with panelists Dr. Zulfikar Ramzan of Symantec's Security Technology and Response team and Paul Wood from MessageLabs' Intelligence. You've often heard Zulfikar quoted in stories about emerging new threats such as the latest viruses, malware and online fraud and Paul authors our monthly MessageLabs reports in addition to providing security intelligence to the public. Read more...

In the late 1800's, a young teenage boy from Eastern Europe stepped off a boat onto the wharf of the bustling port of a major East Coast American city. He didn't speak the language as well as he wished he did. He was unfamiliar with the people, the city, and the correct way to get things done. But he knew he had a task to complete - he had to purchase a ticket on a train to another, nearby city where relatives were waiting for him. Read more...

Google announces a program to offer travelers free high speed wireless web access in airports across America and on Virgin Air flights through the holiday season. Names of the secure Google wireless networks will vary so be sure to check with airport officials in the terminal before logging on. Turn off Bluetooth and file and printer sharing so you can enjoy Google’s gift without any hacker side effects. Now that the wifi is free, can I get some more power outlets in the terminal? Read more...

Two days spent in Washington DC with the leaders of the Internet Safety movement. Some think we've turned a corner, away from focusing on the issue of online predation and children as victims, and now able to move on to other, more complex issues. I'm not quite convinced. Read more...

When I get on the computer each day I have a number of standard websites I check before I get into email, projects or meetings. You likely have your own, perhaps one set for the work day and others for leisure time. My prime targets include news, technology, government and parenting sites. Most of them are managed by large corporations with IT departments and staff dedicated to securing the site and designing a positive user experience. Still, I find it jarring how often the edges of any webpage are littered with junk advertising. The ones that bug me most are the dancing girls of mortgage ads, the anti-aging skin care fright mask images, or anything strobing or flashing at me. Dan Neil of The Los Angeles Times calls them "punch the monkey" ads. Read more...

The issue of medical identity theft is not entirely new and can take several forms. A stolen name and insurance number can allow a crook to pose as you to receive medical benefits. Or an employee of a medical provider can steal private information and resell to criminal rings. Or a physician or other medical provider might fraudulently charge your insurance for services never received or drugs resold to others. You might never discover you are a victim or find you owe hundreds of thousands of dollars for care that went to others. How to protect yourself? What is available to assist victims? Read more...

Imagine this common scenario: you’ve been laid off and you need to register with the state to receive unemployment benefits. Part of the requirement today in California is to post your résumé to a state-run CalJobs website. An investigation into the security of that website has uncovered numerous security risks that could easily lead to identity theft for the hundreds of thousands of users. Read more...

Among my social networking friends, I know of at least two whose accounts have been hacked and many more who have experienced attempts. One of these exploits turned painful when his friend fell for the pleas of the criminals and wired money to help out his stranded “friend”. The other friend managed to notify many of her online friends to be wary of any social networking messages she might appear to send. Read more...

A two-year FBI investigation into phishing, or cybercrime efforts to gain access to bank accounts via fraudulent emails, has resulted in a sting operation against 100 people in the US and Egypt. The phishing scam stole approximately $1.5 million from at least 5,000 customers of at least two U.S. banks (Bank of America and Wells Fargo) according to news reports. Read more...

October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. You can learn more about cyber security from the National Cyber Security Alliance, a public/private organization that brings together the minds and resources of companies like Symantec and Microsoft along with government agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security. Their website at http://www.staysafeonline.org/ has a deep and wide array of resources for individuals and organizations to up their safety education. One of my favorites is their lesson plans for teachers that help incorporate important online safety lessons into their curriculum. And these lesson plans are FREE! Here is a link. Read more...

It's easy to imagine how your child's school might use an extra $20,000. Maybe new math books that crack when you first open them or band uniforms with an extra gold braid down the leg; field trips where you order the "good buses" or even a few SMART boards for the classrooms. $20,000 might even mean the return of a beloved teacher! Read more...

This is a very common story. You are toodling along, reading your email, surfing the web, updating your Facebook status when you get an alert on your screen. It says, "Your computer is infected" or something similar. The alert looks very official, like it came from your operating system. There's a button to click, so you do. Suddenly, a cool looking scan appears on your screen, showing you progress as it searches your system and finds several viruses and other malware. You think, "How can this be happening? I have security software on my computer?? Did it fail me?" Read more...

Did you know if you or one of your children are now in college many technology manufacturers offer deep discounts on their products? Often, all that is needed to qualify is an email address ending in .edu, the standard extension used by colleges and universities. Small print on the offer pages may provide other ways of validating your identity if you lack the email address or you attend a technical college. Read more...

Every ¼ of a second, a new cybercrime is committed. One in five consumers is a cybercrime victim. Global cybercrime revenues exceed that of the international drug trade. What's going on here? While many of us were worrying about old-school viruses getting on our computers, the world of cybercrime took it to a whole new level. Not only ramping up the speed with which they toss new threats out into the marketplace (we've seen logarithmic growth in new malware over the last 2 years), cybercriminals are far more sophisticated in their efforts, buying and trading your private information in a vast, underground black market. Read more...

A new study on predictive elements of cyberbullying is published in the current edition of CyberPsychology & Behavior magazine. The study, from Dr. Gustavo S. Mesch of University of Haifa, Israel, measures risks of online victimization among a sampling of American teens and their parents. What increases your child's risk for being a victim of cyberbullying? Joining social networks, sharing personal information, participating in chat rooms and even watching YouTube videos will increase your child's risk factors. Lots of e-communication like sending text messages, Instant messages and emails also puts the child at higher risk. Read more...

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Internet. To mark this important milestone Symantec - the global leader in online security - took a look back at some of the most notorious threats ever seen online: Read more...

I tried to avoid the obvious puns of “online search can get you burned” or “only you can prevent cybercrime.” Out of respect to my old friends at the US Forest Service and Smokey Bear, I’ll demonstrate my editorial restraint. The most important news to report is that, as predictably as smoke will indicate fire, big tragedies attract malicious cybercriminals to take advantage of consumer curiosity and generosity. In the case of the current California wildfires, an innocent web search for news or an attempt to donate to the victims can lead you into some serious hotspots. Read more...

Our recent cell phone bill revealed a new cybercrime to me. First, my husband noticed a mysterious $9.99 "premium services" charge on the bill for my oldest child's line. He asked her if she'd signed up for any text services or paid for a ringtone. When she proclaimed her innocence, he left the bill for me to follow up with the cell provider, since the line is in my name. You'll never guess what I uncovered. SMS scams that begin with innocent social networking fun. Read more...

Filthy, dirty websites to avoid; Cyberbullying leads to jailtime for one UK girl and legal trouble for a Missouri woman; Freedom of speech versus internet slander; Hotelier data breach, and first US center for web addictions. These are some of the topics in our headlines across a variety of Internet safety topics. Let's break it down: Read more...

In an earlier blog post, I provided some tips for making YouTube a better, safer experience for children. Despite the fine efforts of the folks at YouTube, not only is there inappropriate content on the site but misleading comments, links and tags can take your child from videos you'd approve of to content you'd never allow. We know that YouTube is the top destination for our children online, proven in anecdotes from visits to schools and in our recent study of children monitored by our new OnlineFamily.Norton family safety service. Read more...