Hey Kids! Do You Want Some Spyware?

A report at Security Pipeline finds that web sites with content intended for children are the most infested with adware, malware, and spyware of any categories studied. The study conducted by Symantec using brand new computers running Windows XP SP2 found this troubling statistic:

Children were the biggest target for spyware makers, by far. The trip to several kids' sites installed a whopping 359 pieces of adware on Symantec's PCs, five times more than the nearest category rival, travel. Popup ads proliferated on the machines after that, making them virtually unusable.

And these were sites that were considered mainstream, not the kinds of places that kids try to sneak off to when the teacher isn't watching and a hole is found in the firewall.

Great. Thank you captains of industry. Great business plan you got there.

via John Dowdell.

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