Bitdefender 2013 – Enhanced Parental Control: Keep your Children Safe

A recent PC Mag review of Bitdefender 2013 sums up exactly what we have been telling you for the last few weeks about this product: “Bitdefender Total Security 2013 includes just about every imaginable security feature, and then some…”

Excellent news, don’t you think? Especially if you have children. No, Bitdefender hasn’t created the perfect baby sitter, but they have taken your child’s online safety into serious consideration. Bitdefender Internet Security and Total Security 2013 provide enhanced parental control that blocks inappropriate content, restricts web access between certain hours and helps you monitor your children’s online activity – even on Facebook. 

Why is this so important? Generation Tech; more kids know their way around a computer and the internet than know how to ride a bike, swim or tie their shoelaces correctly. The days of knee pads and wrist guards being enough to protect your children are a thing of the past. 

Statistics (Polly Klaas Foundation, NOP Research Group and The Kaiser Family Foundation) indicate:

• 99% of children aged between 10 and 17 make regular use of the internet.
• 55% of children have a social networking profile.
• 56% of teens and 12% of tweens (10-13 age group) receive requests for personal information.
• 54% of teens and 10% of tweens frequently interact with online strangers.
• 42% of teens and 5% of tweens have posted personal information online.
• 30% of teens and 4% of tweens have discussed meeting in person with cyber strangers.
• 27% have discussed sex with online strangers and 16% have discovered that the person they are talking to online is in fact an adult pretending to be much younger.
• 1 in 5 children aged between 10 and 17 receives a sexual solicitation* or approach online in a one-year period.
• 1 in 25 children aged between 10 and 17 who receive a sexual solicitation will be contacted offline.
• Over 29% of children willingly give out their home address and other personal information to strangers online, when asked.
• 70% of children have accidentally encountered online pornography.
• Only 42% of children who have had online encounters that frightened them, told a parent.
• Only 18% of children who are contacted by strangers online will tell a parent.
• 1 in 3 children aged between 12 and 17 will be the victim of cyber bullying and online harassment.
• 51% of parents do not have or do not know if they have any “parental control” software to monitor their children’s online interactions and navigations.
• 95% of parents could not identify phrases such as POS (Parents Over Shoulder) and P911 (Parent Alert)
• 42% of parents do not review their children’s online activity and the content of what they both read and write.

The internet is a huge part of children’s lives. Removing all the evil that lurks in the dark corners of cyber space is an almost impossible and on-going battle, but you can limit your children’s access and keep them out of danger’s reach. 

*In this context “sexual solicitation” does not mean offering children money for sex. The term is used to indicate the actions of asking children to talk about sex, to give out personal sexual information or asking them to do something sexual.