David Marcus
Dave Marcus has more than twelve years of technical experience in information security, and network and host ...
Today McAfee released the results from our survey “Secret Life of Teens,” which provides a detailed snapshot of online teen behavior. It reveals that 85 percent of teens go online somewhere other than at home and under the supervision of their parents, nearly a third (32 percent) of teens say they don’t tell their parents what they do while they are online, and 28 percent engage with strangers online. The survey results should serve as a wake-up call for many parents.
Kids today are using mobile devices more than ever to get connected, which means increased opportunities for unsupervised usage. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily, but it can become one easily. I truly believe it comes down to values. It is not that young people today do not value privacy or security but rather that they value openness much more. To protect young people, we need education and technology, both of which are firmly in the hands of us parents. Kids cannot teach themselves to be safe online.
We commissioned Harris Interactive to conduct the survey and in it we detail some pretty startling facts:
69 percent of teens divulged their physical location
28 percent chatted with strangers
Of those teens who chatted with strangers, defined as people whom they did not know in the offline world:
43 percent shared their first name
24 percent shared their email address
18 percent posted photos of themselves
12 percent posted their cell phone number
As the parent of a teenage girl, I found the results eye-opening that girls make themselves targets more often than boys: 32% of the girl respondents indicated they chat with strangers online vs. 24% of boy respondents. Byron Acohido of The Last Watchdog, has a great write-up of the report as well.
Times and technology have changed. It is very easy to be a cybercriminal and predator. Download and read this survey (I linked the copy on The Last Watchdog website). Share it with everyone you know who has children. Read it with your own children. Teachable moments are a great thing. This is a teachable moment.
Take back the Internet.
This article is very true. I think over 87% of kids that go online do things they shouldnt. NEVER give away where you live. If it is required for purchasing something purchase it with your parents on a Non-Public machine with Mcafee on it. And make sure it isnt a false site. Use a trusted search engine like Google or Yahoo to find the egzact site your looking for, dont just follow links.
Plus a lot of kids watch and lookup things they shouldnt, just to tell anybody reading: “Anything you do on a computer can be tracked” Especially if your not the administrator.
Most kids over the age of 13 have there own computer and never take care of it like it should be taken care of. They dont use AV’s or use the free ones and never scan or configure. A computer is more then just an electronic, you like your facebook and your email and your games right? Well all that can just as easily be taken away if you dont take care of your comp. Clean it, keep it protected with Mcafee (Total protection) Defrag it with proffesional tools and clean out all the junk.
Also buying a computer is an important decision. Dont buy the cheapest one they have because its the cheapest. You should almost NEVER buy one off of a computer Re-selling place like E-Bay, you never know what was on the computer before or what is on it now. Most people who sell there comp never wipe it and reinstall the OS, and plus they re-sell it for a good reason. Thats because they didnt want it anymore.
And almost everybody has a mobile device nowawadays right? Even kids in kindergarten are texting there friends! But, just because they grew up around the technology doesnt mean they learn a darn thing about it. Like my moma always use to say “You can afford a phone when you can pay for it yourself” I dont currently own one and i know alot more about them then people who do! Dont think those texts you are having back and forth between that girl/guy are never found if they are deleted. Your friends could even take your phone, get a third party software and retrieve all the messages back. And plus never think that they are totally safe. Malware and hacker attacks on Smartphones is soon to be coming in large payloads. especially for Windows phones. If you have a Iphone or Ipod touch your little bit safer if you DONT JAILBRAKE IT. Jailbreaking exposes the raw files of your device, thus malware can then attack those files and hackers can exploit your device! They could use up all your minutes! They could use your Itunes account and buy an 800$ app that you cant afford! There are really no pros about jailbreaking unless you know how the core of your I device works and how to use it.
And also there are a lot of people you know that are probably hackers, know how to or have hacked before.
So kids. stay away from those P sites that your friends want to look at. And especially never let your friends look at it on your electronics. Tell them to go back to there malware infested PC back at home.
And with that stranger part. A stranger emailed me right here on the Mcafee community site telling me to send her money over in africa… You never know.
“Thats what you get when you buy a vista! Woahowaoah!”
Is it just me or did i also create an article?
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