Yes, children. Many of the web sites children like to visit are heavily laced with adware and spyware, often very attractively disguised. All it takes is a click or two, and their computer may be seriously compromised. These are sites that are designed for children, with content that appears appropriate for children. On these sites and many others, children are prime targets for spyware and adware.

The fact is, the Internet is a risky place for the unprotected and the unaware. And too many children, sometimes very young children, are being exploited by many of the web sites that they visit and much of the software they download. This spyware and adware jeopardizes their privacy as well as the privacy of everyone who uses the same computer or computer network.

Therefore it is very important to realize that any computer that is connected to the Internet should not be treated as a toy. Why? Because something that can steal your identity is not a toy. And something that can be hijacked and used to attack critical business and government computers is not a toy. And something that can easily be turned into a SPAM spewing zombie is not a toy. The only indication that this has happened may be a slow Internet connection and a sluggish computer. This isn’t kids stuff.

If you have children who access the Internet, please be aware that they are prime targets, and through them, so are you, and through them, so is the Internet as a whole. Children and teenagers are particularly vulnerable to malware that piggybacks on programs that they find attractive. Malware attached to these programs can spy on the browsing habits of children, can collect personally identifying data and may attempt to exploit children and other users for profit.

• Games downloaded from the Internet are likely to contain malware components. And online gaming often requires deactivating or weakening of firewalls, further increasing the vulnerability of computers to various threats.
• Instant Messaging is popular with children and teenagers and it is increasingly being used to spread spyware and viruses.
• File sharing programs are very popular with children and teenagers, and almost all of these programs contain massive amounts of spyware. Plus, if your children download copyrighted music or movies, you may be shocked to find that you, as the responsible adult, may be sued for thousands of dollars by the music and movie industry.
• The proliferation of broadband, always on, high speed connections, and wireless networks that are often dangerously insecure, has greatly contributed to this problem. So does a computer that is not protected by a firewall and up-to-date antivirus and antispyware applications. And so does a computer that does not have the latest browser and operating system updates.

We are not blaming the children. But we ARE blaming the creators of the adware and spyware, and we ARE blaming the owners and creators of the web sites that distribute it, and we ARE blaming the hackers and spammers.

What is needed is for responsible adults, to become much more aware of current state of insecurity of the Internet, and to become much more involved in protecting children. And that includes parents, guardians and educators, Internet Service Providers, and government officials and legislators, and more.

In particular, we hope legislators will step up to the plate and make it illegal to install software on anyone’s computer without explicit and informed consent. We also hope they will make it illegal to use any software to spy on the computer user in any manner, period.

Yet, we are not naive enough to think this will cure the problem. But it may stop some of the exploitation by so called legitimate companies that seem to think they have the right to install any kind or spyware they want on computers that don’t belong to them.

• Franky, we don’t have confidence that legislation will cure this problem. For one thing, the spyware industry is a 2 billion dollar industry, and an industry with that much money can buy a lot of influence.
• And secondly, the use of spyware -like technology is so pervasive even among the biggest names in the industry, that we are pretty certain they will secure exemptions to their spying and invasive techniques under some guise of legitimacy. Look for such exemptions in any legislation put forward.
• Thirdly, we believe local or national legislation will simply drive the offenders offshore. And obviously,with the Internet, it will be very easy to take this offshore.

We hope that parents or other knowledgeable persons will carefully set up the security systems on the computers that children use, and will supervise and audit their use. We are not advocating censorship or secret spying on the children. But we are advocating careful, informed use of the Internet by all concerned and all who provide computers for access to the Internet for children. And we believe it is important to carefully instruct children in safe computing practices. This should be done whether the computer is at home or at the library or at school.

We suggest that children be engaged in the process of updating and securing computers that they use, with adult supervision. Children will often enjoy sharing the responsibility of keeping family computers secure and up to date. Often, children are more skilled at certain kinds of computer use than their parents. But this doesn’t mean that they are skilled at computer security and safe surfing practices. They can still be vulnerable to clever attacks and popular but insecure practices, such as peer to peer file sharing.

It is very important to realize that the Internet is not a friendly neighborhood. But it is not a completely bad neighborhood either. If used wisely, the Internet does have a tremendous amount of safe and friendly resources for children. But parents and other responsible authorities need to do a much better job of providing a safer online environment for children. And it should not go without notice: a safer online environment for children is a safer online environment for everyone.

Sources:

For more info, check out this article

http://www.benedelman.org/news/041805-1.html

- Practice Safe Computing -

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Update: Researcher Ben Edeleman has demonstrated how one specific spyware application called “Hotbar” can target children on children’s sites.

And not only does “Hotbar” target children, it threatens lawsuits against any antispyware program that detects and removes Hotbar, as it recently did against Sunbelt Software.

Evidently its treats have been successful, as many big name antispyware programs do not detect and remove Hotbar.

Ben Edleman’s article can be found here: http://www.benedelman.org/news/051605-1.html

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Another Update: Claria also targets kids through a number of web sites designed to be attractive to kids and teenagers, including ezone.com. For more information, check out the following research conducted by Ben Edeleman.

Claria promotes its software through banner advertisements shown within certain web sites, including web sites largely catering to children. Users need only click on an ad once, then press “Yes” once, in order to receive Claria software. Claria shows a license, but only after its software has become installed on users’ PCs.

http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/installations/ezone-claria/

Posted on Sunday, June 5th, 2005 at 4:28 pm and filed under All Posts, General, Malware. You can follow any responses to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or you may trackback from your own site.