Things are not always what they seem on the Internet,.
An e-mail from your bank, asking you to change your online password for security reasons, may actually be a fraud, sent by a criminal hoping to access your account.
A file attached to an e-mail from a friend may be, in reality, a destructive computer virus, sent without your friend’s knowledge.
And the 15-year-old girl your teenaged daughter has befriended online could be, in truth, a 45-year-old male child molester.
These are just three examples of the many threats you and your family face on the Internet. Hacker attacks, spyware, worms, identity theft, pornographic spam, privacy intrusions—these, too, are now everyday occurrences online.
Just how risky is the Internet today? Consider the following:
• The number of fraudulent e-mail messages—known as phishing attacks, which are designed to steal critical data (such as bank passwords) from consumers and businesses—increased more than 1,000% from January to June 2005, according to an IBM report. Losses resulting from phishing scams range from $500 million to $1 billion per year, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
• Eighty percent of users had some form of spyware on their computers in 2004, according to an America Online/National Cyber Security Alliance survey.
• While yesterday’s viruses were primarily destructive, more than half of the major viruses and malicious programs active during July-December 2004 were designed to steal confidential information, according to Consumer Reports.
• Approximately one in five youths aged 10 to 17 have been solicited for sex online, reports a survey from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Fortunately, there are many effective precautions you can take, as well as a variety of computer security tools available. The following is a hands-on, practical guide to protecting yourself and your entire family on the Internet.
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