Online threats can be divided into 5 categories – Predators, Cyber bullying, identity theft, Malicious code and inappropriate content, each of which have there own concerns, warning signs, and solutions.
Predators
Federal Authorities believe that 500,000-750,000 predators are on-line on a daily basis, according to Clint Van Zandt, a MSNBC analyst and a former FBI profiler. The good news is that a US Department of Justice study shows that unwanted sexual solicitations between their 2000 and 2005 showed a reduction of 6% based upon their “Online Victimization of Youth Study.” The bad news is that even with that reduction 13% were still solicited. That is better than 1 out of every 8 youths online received unwanted sexual solicitations. Further bad news found that there was actually a small increase in aggressive solicitations, which where defined as when a predator tried to make and offline contact with children, from 3% to 4%. This means that nearly 1 out of 20 children had a predator try to set up a meeting with them.
Predators Tactics
study of Internet-related crimes completed by Wolak, Finkelhor, & Mitchell in 2004 showed that online internet predators targeted young teenagers and used there developing interest in sex and their desire for romance to manipulate them into meeting in person. This manipulation is called grooming. Throughout the grooming process, predators follow a pattern where they gain familiarity, develop trust, establish secrecy, erode barriers, intimidate, and eventually arrange a face-to-face meeting. In some cases, the grooming process can occur in as little as two weeks. Victims have no idea that the individual with whom they are confiding is actually an adult pretending to be somebody they are not.
