Users’ confidence does not match up with percentage of properly protected users.
Research by
StopBadware.org
shows that 88% of Americans say they feel safe online, despite the current threats of phishing, spyware and other kinds of badware.
Of survey participants who were under 30 – the generation that grew up with computers and the Internet – nearly 50% even expressed feeling ‘very safe’.
“What we have here is an Internet security paradox,” says Maxim Weinstein of
StopBadware.org
, a collaboration of the universities of Harvard and Oxford and some big IT companies. “Americans see themselves as safe online, even as we see an ongoing trend of organized criminal elements using the Internet to target unsuspecting users.”
Weinstein will testify at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today about how to better educate users about the dangers of phishing. According to
Consumer Reports
, identity theft through phishing cost American computer users a total of $2.1 billion last year.
That there is room for improvement and that many users might be too confident about their online safety was shown in a
recent study
by
McAfee
and the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) which showed that only 22% of Americans have taken adequate protection by using a firewall and updating their anti-virus and anti-spyware regularly.
More can be found at
StopBadware.org
here
.
Posted on 1 April 2008 by
Virus Bulletin
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