With the recent news regarding spikes in cyber crime, there's a lot of advice out there regarding the best ways to safeguard your personal information, particularly on social networking sites.

Unfortunately the best advice - using computer monitoring software - isn't getting the attention it deserves. This is particularly true for parents of teens and tweens, who spend a lot of time on social networking sites, and aren't always interested in cyber safety.

The article at Fox News about cyber security does a fairly good job of laying out the problems we're facing today; with the millions of people out there using social networking sites on a daily basis, it make sense that criminals would target them.

But without computer monitoring software many parents and teens are in a particularly dangerous situation.

First and foremost, computer monitoring software protects kids against online predators and cyber bullies, who are already known to troll social networking sites looking for new victims.

But many of the other cyber security issues mentioned in the article actually go double for parents of kids.

For example, parents can be as careful as they like about protecting their passwords, not clicking on odd looking links or emails, and not sharing personal information.

But if your child does it your computer, and your friends' emails, are still at risk. Kids are also far more likely to engage in dangerous online activity based on naivete, a misunderstanding of the dangers involved, and just plain old curiosity.

This is one situation where good quality computer monitoring can do double duty - it can protect your children from predators, and protect your personal information from criminals looking to take advantage of the social networking environment.