Looking For Stuff in All the Wrong Places!

Recently I was looking for a few somewhat obscure things online. We are talking really random! I belong to a group in my area and it was my turn to lead our group. I was going to teach everyone how to crochet. So I went online to look for a pattern for a simple dishcloth to teach.

That same week, my daughter had saved up enough money (all by herself!) to buy an American Girl Bitty Baby and I was looking for patterns for clothes for the doll to sew. (I am a little bit crafty, if you couldn’t tell…)

In both of those searches, the deeper I looked for ideas the more sites popped up with possible malware on them! How did I know that the sites possibly contained bad stuff, such as malware, you ask? Site Advisor of course!

It seemed really strange that criminals were trying to get me on sewing and crafting sites. But when I thought about it, I realized the searches had something in common. I had typed in the word “Free” with crochet patterns when I was searching.  One trick bad guys use to lure people is using the word “free”.  Not so “random” after all! I should have known after writing this blog way back when about the most dangerous search terms. I was digging really deep to find a good crochet pattern, what can I say?

If you have never used SiteAdvisor (What are you waiting for??? It’s a free tool!) when you search for something on Yahoo, Google, Bing, etc., and hit enter, a small circle pops up next to your search results showing a site as either green, yellow or red [yeah, I know you’ve heard me talk about this before – I’m talking to the new people! ; )]. 

The red dot next to the crochet search results warned me that the website was not safe to visit. A “red” rated site means that it might contain links, images, video, etc. that contained adware, spyware or viruses among other things that would be bad for my computer.

This is great as it gives you a warning so you can choose not to go to a particular site because of the rating. When I hover my mouse over the colored dot, I get the reason why the site was rated (it possibly was a phishing site, found potential security risks, excessive pop-ups, etc can cause a yellow or red dot). So when the site was red, it meant that McAfee already found that site and my security suite protected my computer from the virus that was on that website. Pretty cool, right?

And before I could get to the red site, I got a warning from McAfee. D’oh!…To protect yourself from landing on a potentially harmful site, you can:

1.       Like me, have McAfee Total Protection installed and set to auto update (this protects me from new threats). It’s the comprehensive security suite with Site Advisor Plus that actually blocks me from going to a red rated site.

2.       Download the free SiteAdvisor tool to warn you with the green, yellow and red icons when you are using a search engine. 

So when the site was red, it meant that McAfee already found that site and my security suite protected my computer from the virus that was on that website. Pretty cool, right?

This reminded me that even if you don’t go searching for “free” anything on the web, kids generally do. I thought perhaps you might want a refresher on safe searching practices, just in case it was time for “the talk” with your kids. ; )

Stay safe out there!

Tracy

Find me on Twitter ~ @McAfeeCyberMom

Tags: Cyber Security Mom, dangerous searches, Family Safety, keep family PC safe, sear

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