Most online Americans view online shopping as a way to save time and a convenient way to buy products. At the same time, most internet users express discomfort over a key step in online shopping – sending personal or credit card information over the internet.

All computers, from your desktop in the den to the laptop you use on the road, have become more and more vulnerable to intrusion and attack. From January 2005 to the present an estimated 165 million data records of US residents have been exposed according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Viruses, worms, malware and spyware are rampant throughout the Internet. Entities as diverse as the federal government and the City of New York pension system to companies like SAIC, AT&T and numerous banks have had laptops with supposedly secure information either lost or stolen. In September the virus threat even hit Skype, with the discovery of a worm that used Skype phone chat to redirect users to a website that infected their computers. With the Cyberwars becoming more and more heated, everyone from Microsoft and Symantec to the Department of Homeland Security issue alerts, updates, patches and security bulletins. All of this information and help will be to no avail without basic security awareness on the part of every computer user.

The Computer Security Institute (CSI) today released its 2007 report with news that the average annual loss reported by U.S. companies in the 2007 CSI Computer Crime and Security Survey more than doubled, from $168,000 in last year's report to $350,424 in this year's survey. This ends a five-year run of lower reported losses. Financial fraud overtook virus attacks as the source of the greatest financial loss. Virus losses, which had been the leading cause of loss for seven straight years, fell to second place. Another significant cause of loss was system penetration by outsiders.

The majority of teens actively manage their online profiles to keep the information they believe is most sensitive away from the unwanted gaze of strangers, parents and other adults. While many teens post their first name and photos on their profiles, they rarely post information on public profiles they believe would help strangers actually locate them such as their full name, home phone number or cell phone number.

Human resources professionals around the world can monitor what current and potential employees are doing and have done online. According to the New Media Institute (NMI), both children and adults need to realize that what they do online could impact their future.