Families certainly don't need computer hassles during the holidays, but this highly social time is right when everybody needs to be a little extra alert to social engineering. Here's what social engineering looks like this week, at the convergence of last-minute holiday distractions and the sudden death of a young actor, Brittany Murphy. "As a young star in movies that were highly popular with a … [Read more...] about Celebrity news, holidays & malware
Symantec
Being up front about monitoring online kids
I see no point in parents secretly monitoring kids' online activities - except if a parent feels a child is in danger and the child is unwilling to communicate or make a change in those activities and is being secretive him or herself. If those exceptional criteria are met and a child is at risk, surreptitious use of monitor software is very probably necessary. Otherwise, the only kind of … [Read more...] about Being up front about monitoring online kids
Conficker worm help (aka April Fool’s worm)
It has been all over the news today, so a quick summary on what to do if you're concerned about family computers getting infected: You can see if your computers are ok by checking if they have MS08-067 installed. How? The exact steps depend on what version of Windows is on the particular PC, but they go pretty much like this: Go to Start > Control Panel > Programs > View installed updates. If you … [Read more...] about Conficker worm help (aka April Fool’s worm)
Views of Net users young & old: Studies
Lots of international (individual and family) Internet-user data has been released via various studies this past week, courtesy of Symantec, Google, Yahoo, and Skype. Symantec's Norton Online Living Report was very family-oriented, having gathered the views of 9,000 adults and young people in 12 countries! Some interesting findings NetworkWorld led with were that "one in five children admitted … [Read more...] about Views of Net users young & old: Studies