Surf Stats

• An estimated 725,000 people have been aggressively pursued for sex online.
• 1 out of 4 children were sent pictures of people naked or having sex.
• 1 out of 5 kids were solicited for sex on the Internet.
• 50% of people have made phone calls with someone they chatted with online.
• One in five kids ages 10-17 online have been sexually solicited, yet only 25% of them told a parent.
• 89% of sexual solicitations are made in chat rooms or through instant messages, 13 million youth use chat rooms or instant messaging, or both.
• 81% of parents say teens aren't careful enough when giving out information online, 79% of teens agree.
• 65% of parents and 64% of teens say teens do things online they wouldn't want their parents to know about.
• Identity theft is one of the fastest growing financial crimes in the U.S.
• Nearly 10 million Americans were victims of identity theft in 2003.
• The estimated cost to consumers for these crimes is nearly $5 billion.
• Young people, ages 18 to 29 years old, are the No. 1 target for identity thieves.
• People whose identities have been stolen can spend years and hard-earned money - an average of $5,000 - to restore a damaged credit rating.

HELP DELETE ONLINE PREDATORS
Report any disturbing incidents by giving the screenname or E-mail address and any other information known about the online sexual perpetrator to your Internet service provider, local law enforcement, and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s www.cybertipline.com. The majority of children who use the Internet do not get into serious trouble. The Internet is a wonderful tool, but like anything else you need to be careful when using it.

To learn more about Internet guidelines please visit:
CyberTipLine.com and NetSmartz.org
or call 1-800-THE-LOST® (1-800-843-5678).

Cyber Security Practices to Stay Safe Online

• Protect your personal information. It's valuable.
• Know who you're dealing with online.
• Use anti-virus software, a firewall, and anti-spyware software to help keep your computer safe and secure.
• Be sure to set up your operating system and Web browser software properly, and update them regularly.
• Use strong passwords or strong authentication technology to help protect your personal information.
• Back up important files.
• Learn what to do if something goes wrong.
• Protect your children online.

An increasing number of youth are being victimized in a nontraditional method commonly referred to as cyberbullying or e-bullying . In 2004, half of 3,000 U.S. youth surveyed stated that they or someone they knew had been victims or perpetrators of cyberbullying. Teens are using emailing, instant messaging, text messaging, and defamatory personal websites to threaten, embarrass, and ostracize their peers.

More than twenty-five years ago, the National Crime Prevention Council and the Ad Council introduced McGruff to the nation and began empowering Americans to Take a Bite Out of Crime. McGruff has been successfully fighting crime ever since, providing the information and motivation needed to develop safer, stronger and more caring communities.rnrnThe newest PSAs inspire tweens and teens, particularly girls, to put an end to cyberbullying - using the Internet or mobile devices to send or post harmful or cruel text or images.

Report: Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-olds
A national Kaiser Family Foundation survey found children and teens are spending an increasing amount of time using “new media” like computers, the Internet and video games, without cutting back on the time they spend with “old” media like TV, print and music. Instead, because of the amount of time they spend using more than one medium at a time (for example, going online while watching TV), they’re managing to pack increasing amounts of media content into the same amount of time each day.

The study, Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-olds, examined media use among a nationally representative sample of more than 2,000 3rd through 12th graders who completed detailed questionnaires, including nearly 700 self-selected participants who also maintained seven-day media diaries.

FTC Identity Theft Site
This website is a one-stop national resource to learn about the crime of identity theft. It provides detailed information to help you Deter, Detect, and Defend against identity theft. While there are no guarantees about avoiding identity theft, there are steps you can take to minimize your risk and minimize the damage if a problem occurs

The FTC’s national education campaign - AvoID Theft: Deter, Detect, Defend - aims to empower consumers to protect themselves against identity theft and to minimize the damage it can cause. Through the program, the FTC provides necessary tools to enable anyone – regardless of existing knowledge about the issue – to effectively educate others.

Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Compliance Policy
Identity Theft Resource Page - The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACT Act) defines "identity theft" broadly as “a fraud committed or attempted using the identifying information of another person without authority.” It is a pernicious crime that can threaten the confidence we share in our open and robust financial system if we don’t take action. Government, industry and consumers all have a role to play in combating identity theft.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group is an association focused on eliminating identity theft and fraud, a growing problem that results from phishing and email spoofing. The organization provides a forum to discuss phishing issues, define the scope of the problem in terms of hard and soft costs, and share information and best practices for eliminating the problem.

Automated Incident Reporting (AirCERT) is a scalable distributed system for sharing security event data among administrative domains. Using AirCERT, organizations can exchange security data from raw alerts generated by network intrusion detection systems and incident reports based on the assessments of human analysts.  The goal of AirCERT is to provide a capability to discern trends and patterns of intruder activity spanning multiple administrative domains.SiLK, the System for Internet-Level Knowledge, is a collection of traffic analysis tools developed by the CERT Network Situational Awareness Team (CERT NetSA) to facilitate security analysis of large networks.

CERT NetSA Security Suite
Open Source Tools for Network Monitoring
The National Cyber Alert System was created by US - CERT and the Department of Homeland Security to help you protect your computer. Alerts ensure that you have access to timely information about security topics and events.