Protect The Children

More hidden and certainly more insidious than identity theft is the crime of on-line sexual stalking. It is particularly heinous because it targets children who are ignorant of the dangers of talking to people on-line, and that make easy targets for sexual predators.

More hidden and certainly more insidious than identity theft is the crime of on-line sexual stalking. It is particularly heinous because it targets children who are ignorant of the dangers of talking to people on-line, and that make easy targets for sexual predators.

Perversely, it turns out that Surveillance Software, that is very similar to the "Safe Surf" style software that snoops on your children's computer activities has become the new tool of choice for predators. Surveillance software is a form of malware (malicious software) that can be easily installed clandestinely on a computer via a Trojan (a type of computer virus) hidden inside an executable "greeting card", game, joke, video, music file etc. And once inside and running on your computer, it gives the predator at the remote end of the connection full access to roam through all the files and folders on your computer.

Here's the scenario that's the nightmare of all loving parents:

A young boy or girl between 8 and 13 years old is using the family computer on-line. They discover the world of on-line chat rooms or communities (like MySpace.com) and build a profile so people can find them. Of course, they lie about their age and give themselves a "grown up" age of 14 to 18 years old. This works because by law these on-line communities are not supposed to cater to children 13 years old and younger. Of course, children being children, they lie to gain access to the "fun".

Next, a sexual predator looking for boys or girls that are 18 years old or younger, who is of course very familiar with the psychology of their victims, knows what kind of profiles to look for. They look at the pictures closely, the descriptions typed in by the children, etc. Finally, from the millions of possible potential victims, they target only select a select few by using the powerful profile search capabilities offered by these on-line communities.

After making contact via chat rooms, instant messenger, or email the sexual predator determines which of the chosen few victims becomes the next target. Once the target has been chosen, then trust must be built up in the target to be able to arrange for a future "meeting".

During the "chats", the sexual predator tries to act like a fun friend to the child. Making jokes, talking about music, TV shows, etc. whatever interests the child. Finally, the predator will send a "greeting card", game, video, or music file to the child which will be self-executing (a ".exe" file on Windows) program. Hidden inside the program is a Trojan virus which delivers a very important piece of software for the predator. It is surveillance software that is installed the instant the child runs the downloaded program to see the greeting, play the game, watch the video, or listen to the music. It happens so fast, not even an adult would notice anything strange.

Once installed, the surveillance software connects with it's counterpart software running on the predator's computer. Once the connection is made, the predator now gains complete and full access to the child's computer over the Internet. Now every keystroke, file, address list, login and password, credit card, email, document, spreadsheet, image, etc. is now accessible invisibly by the predator over the Internet connection.

After remotely snooping around the child's computer long enough, the predator finds what they need. Information about the child's past from emails, what the child really looks like from family photos, if the family is rich or poor from spreadsheets of family budgets. And the list goes on...

Finally, by talking to the child about things that interests the child, particularly taking advantage of things like any bad feelings between the parents and the child, the predator convinces the child that only they can help the child, but to do so they must meet secretly, or some such nonsense like that. Of course, all of this is done with the only important goal of getting the child to agree to a meeting with the predator.

Of course, once the child meets the predator in real-life... it's all over for the child.

Can any of this be prevented? Is there anything, short of banning their children from the computer, that parents can do to safeguard their children from this scenario?

Fortunately, there is. But it takes some work. Here are some ideas.

1. Install a firewall that has the ability to block out all "ports" except out-going connections needed for basic system functions like web access, email, FTP, etc. Surveillance software typically uses unused ports that by default are left wide open on Windows. The built-in firewall of Windows XP is not good enough, and is barely functional as a decent firewall. This will make it harder, although not impossible, for surveillance software to access your computer remotely. Make sure the firewall makes your computer stealthy (invisible) on the Internet, that is, it prevents your computer from responding to incoming pings or port scans on the Internet.

2. Install an anti-virus program that scans your computer in real-time, not just periodically. A lot of the surveillance software can be caught that way before it even gets a chance to infect your computer system.

3. Install an anti-spyware program that scans your computer in real-time. Anti-virus software, as good as it is, is not specifically set up to catch surveillance software, and may not recognize it. Anti-spyware software can usually catch what the anti-virus can miss, and the anti-virus can usually catch what the anti-spyware software can miss. They compliment each other.

4. Install and then run evidence removal software in "quick mode" to delete all temporary files and usage tracks from your computer each time you shutdown Windows. While you may be diligent about removing "sensitive documents" from your computer 100% of the time, you'd be surprised what a snoop can find out about you in your temporary files and even inside Windows' own registry and log files.

Finally, at least once a month, run full system scans using your anti-virus, anti-spyware, and evidence removal software preferably before you do your computer backups. This will keep any infections from getting onto your backups as well, an additional benefit.

The above steps will help prevent any predator's remote surveillance software from invading and accessing your computer. When the predator has too much trouble accessing your computer, it is likely that the predator will simply "move on" to another victim since your computer has put up such a block in their research. While you certainly hope the predator doesn't ever get another victim, and gets caught by police, at the least you'll be able to prevent the predator from entering the computer in your house, and victimizing your children.

Hopefully, more and more people will follow the steps above and maybe take a bite out of the sexual predator occupation and lifestyle.

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