You’ve all heard of the typical phishing emails that target Uncle Joe and Aunt Patty, urging them to send their personal information over the Internet because they won the lottery. Yes, they are the biggest fish out there, making phishing activities very attractive for scammers. But another threat is lurking quietly behind your computer: your kids.
Attracted by emulators, free games and P2P, etc., this is where the dangers begin. Matthew is 10 years old and loves emulators. His friend told him to download the new XYZ version because it’s faster and compatible with every game available. Googling this emulator gave several results. Matt picked one and saved it. What he did not know was that he downloaded a fake version. Once downloaded, he ran the program, clicked Yes 2 or 3 times and enjoyed the game! Yep, it works like the original, but the game has a little more code in it: he now has a key logger installed.
The most popular threat comes from video codecs, of which more than 50% are infected. They don’t hold viruses that destroy everything or turn your computer into a zombie, but they do contain a little spy that lurks inside your network, sniffing everything that gets transmitted to email providers, social networks, and so on. They look for your personal information, your browser history, and everything else you can think of.
This information is slowly leaked out through random UDP ports, fake DNS requests, URL redirections or by regular email. Do this test with your kids: tell them Show me your favorite website. If they access their favorite site through a search engine, that’s a FAIL. A little typo in the address and a clever webmaster can lead you down the path to a malicious website. Search engines are adapting their technologies to correct the results, but smaller sites do not. And if their favorite website is something like www.getallyouwantforfree.com, it’s time for a full system scan!
One more thing: if they’re just like Uncle Joe and Aunt Patty, they use the same password everywhere: every website login, their email accounts, everything. They only have to visit a single phishing website and their entire social life will be revealed. Taking a look at their mailbox contents will give you clues about the sites they’ve subscribed to. Please educate, monitor and talk to your children as they surf the Net. You might have warned them of predators on chat rooms, but there may be others hiding on your own home network.
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