The closer-to-home threat to our children may really be cyberbullying, also known as electronic or online bullying, while reports and stories in the media focusing on Internet predators have become all too frequent. A recent survey of 395 students (11 to 19 years old) found that 28% of students have been cyberbullied, and more than 1 in 7 admitted to acting as the bully.

Co-founder of Pandora Corp., James Leasure, stated: "Cyberbullying could be the biggest online threat facing teens today." He added: "Of course Internet predators do still exist, but statistically, kids have a much greater chance of being involved in some way with electronic bullying."

Because, fortunately, many kids are able to shrug off the 'unkind words' and look the other way, most cases of cyberbullying go undocumented.

Cyberbullying comes in many forms. It can be as simple as unkind words via instant messenger or through a social networking page, and as serious as vicious life threats. Pretending to be the victim, and construct a false profile that depicts the victim in an unfavorable way, some bullies may even create a webpage or social network page. False profiles and webpages can also be used to carryout Internet smear campaigns against victims.

Leasure continues: "Parents are the key to this whole issue." He adds: "They need to be involved and monitoring the computer and Internet activity of their kids. If they see something that isn't right, they need to act as parents and correct the issue."

Leasure believes that all parents should be using computer monitoring software like Pandora Corp's PC Pandora 5.0. The program works like a DVR for the PC, taking sequential snapshots of everything that happens on the computer, so parents can play back and watch all activity.

PC Pandora captures further details of user activity in text-based files. Instant messenger chats, keystrokes, websites, emails, peer-2-peer files traded, and programs accessed are all recorded and documented for parental review. PC Pandora lets parents set up Internet filters and program blocks to make sure their kids aren't accessing programs or content that parents find objectionable. There is also the invaluable IRIS feature that will email a busy parent at work with updates on child activity.