Computer Safety - Kid Safety

Computer threats in your home 

When most people think of computer safety, they think of being protected from threats such as viruses.  Major virus attacks have made national news and while these can cause some severe damage, these are not the most intrusive threats.  The reality is that most ISPs kill off a large percent of the viruses before they even get to the user.  

The biggest problems that are now on the Internet are far more damaging than the average virus.  New breeds of threats have been launched, and the sad fact is that the news media simply doesn't report what is out there.  

Many computers are infected

The number of Web sites distributing malicious software has quadrupled in the last year to more than 300,000, as the spyware problem continues to fester on the Internet, according to an upcoming report from Webroot, an anti-spyware software company.

Webroot Software Inc.'s State of Spyware Report for the second quarter of 2005, claims that 80 percent of enterprise computers are infected with some kind of adware or spyware. It's probably closer to 90% for home users, yet fewer than 5% of the people have any idea they are having problems

Most computer threats fall into these categories:
(For additional info, click on the title)

Cyber-sitters/Stalkers - People who sit online and wait for people to come to them.  Their primary goals are often children and teens who might be a bit disgruntled or at least unaware, and their favorite hangouts include AOL chat rooms.

Spyware types:

Adware - Generally not harmful, but highly annoying with their popups, and giving out more information than you intend.

Trojans - The name taken from the fabled Trojan War, computer trojans are small programs that sit in residence on your computer without making themselves known.  Their purposes are generally to gain access to your computer for various nefarious activities. 

Spam - Though not necessarily a threat to your computer, spam can overtake an email account, cause you extensive time in deleting it, and if you have kids, their email can include some pretty nasty pornography.  New spams can also target you financially.

Viruses - Though most people have heard of these, there are new versions of viruses created every day.  Viruses can do many things from the relatively benign to causing computer catastrophe.  However, all viruses tend to spread themselves in one way or another, with the two biggest ways being through sending themselves via email to people using your email, or through your home network.