Trend Micro Incorporated and Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization working to improve the impact of media on kids, announced a partnership that will help parents, educators and youth better understand how to get the most out of the web’s potential to inspire creativity, collaboration, and learning, as well as raise awareness on Internet security issues such as cybercrime, identity theft, spam, spyware and adware.
While many parents know about online dangers in the form of inappropriate Web-site content, cyber-bullying or online predators, Trend Micro threat researchers are reporting a less well known rise in “good” websites that secretly hide “bad” code planted by profit-driven cybercriminals as a way to infiltrate a user’s computer and steal personal data such as social security numbers, bank account information and credit card numbers.
Social networking sites, for example, are hugely popular among nine to 17-year-olds, many of whom reportedly spend just as much time visiting these sites as they do watching television. Despite their popularity, these sites are usually built upon Web 2.0 technologies and are prime targets for cybercriminals and malware authors who exploit their interactive nature to launch malicious attacks. According to Trend Micro’s recent Threat Report & Forecast, Web 2.0 threats spiked, in volume, to over 1.5 million a month in January 2008 compared to just over 1.0 million in December 2007.
Cybercriminals have also used “typo-squatting” to lure unsuspecting visitors to malicious Web sites when they accidentally misspell a URL. In the past, children have been ensnared without their knowledge and directed to pornographic sites.
Originally posted on September 8, 2008 @ 6:03 am