Most consumers know all too well about the loss that can occur when private data falls into the wrong hands - a risk that has progressively increased in our digital world, where vast amounts of information is stored on our computers and passed back and forth electronically. For businesses, the repercussions of compromised data can be even more devastating.

Right now, when consumer data breaches are at a record high, accountability is a key issue.

The Internet has a dark side that can put each of us in harms way - browse the news, and you'll see headline after headline about record numbers of viruses, along with the latest phishing attempts, malware attacks, and other cyber thievery. Seeing how rapidly cyber crime is progressing can become pretty depressing, not to mention discouraging, for all of us who depend on the Internet as a daily part of our lives.

In the U.S., the upcoming presidential election in November is not just a political hot topic - it has also found its way into the security arena.

Months ago, security experts began predicting that online scammers would take advantage of the media hype surrounding the presidential candidates to prey on computer users. We're already seeing the online risks being noted and reported in a number of ways, including:

• Phony voter-registration drives aimed at ID theft

Many have debated the security pros and cons of today's most popular Web browsers - Internet Explorer and Firefox. Now there's a new browser in town: Chrome.

Even though it's only one week old, you've probably heard the buzz about Googles new browser. Security, of course, is at the forefront of most discussions.

As readers of the Lavasoft blog know, we often come across products and websites that try to piggyback on the name of our company or our flagship product, Ad-Aware, to take advantage of you.  And whenever we do, we make it a priority to get the word out to prevent users from getting scammed.

We've been alerted to a deceptive advertising method that you should be on the lookout for.