Survey: Users Remain Careless About Security Measures

The G Data Software's global survey which released on June 24, 2011 stated that users are unaware about the reality of the malware threats, as per the news by eWEEK.COM on June 26, 2011.

The huge survey got responses from nearly 16,000 users worldwide, out of which more than 5,500 belongs from United States. Almost 89% of participants have security software downloaded on their system, out of which 48% relied on free software.

Further, France held the top position, when the countries were compared. 53% of respondents did not see any difference between free and purchased security solutions. On the other hand, Dutch respondents had the minimum score- only 35% consider free and purchased software to be alike.

The survey revealed that, fortunately, all the U.S. based participants claimed they would immediately identify when their system has been attacked as their machined would become slow, crash down or show pop-up windows. These users do not know that modern malware is generally secretive and can be present on the system for long time and slyly steal information without raising any alarms.

In addition, the survey states that half of the U.S. based participants regularly click on social networks, with almost 19% clicking on links, without knowing where they come from. Such users becomes "easy prey" fro malware authors.

The survey informed that nearly 40% of U.S. based participants claimed that it was more dangerous to access an adult content site than to visit hobby sites like horseback riding. G Data claims that hobby websites are easier to target and pose a higher malware infection risk than an adult site as visitors did not anticipate any threat.

Furthermore, G Data informs in its survey that malware is circulated in several methods. One method is to conceal malware programs on web pages. Just accessing a hacked web page is enough to enable so-called drive-by downloads, which hit systems with viruses, Trojans, spyware and other malware. Users face such harmful web pages either when they are browsing the web or when the perpetrators publish the URLs on social network platforms or in messages in chat rooms.

Related article: Survey Finds 96% Zombie PCs in Malaysia

» SPAMfighter News - 7/4/2011