F-Secure: Survey Finds People Not Feeling Safe Online

Online Wellbeing Survey Reveals Internet Users' Concerns

F-Secure's recently released annual Online Wellbeing Survey results show that many Internet users are not concerned about the security of online financial transactions, but they're not necessarily well informed about security. The annual survey was carried out by a third party in December 2008 with 2,019 Internet users aged 20-40 in the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, UK, Italy, India and Hong Kong.

The great majority of respondents (92%) across the countries said they have security software installed on their computers. However, only 21% of all the respondents knew that antivirus definitions need to be updated many times a day. This indicates that a large population of users may have a false sense of security if their security software is expired or does not update automatically often enough.

"The fact that millions of PCs keep getting infected shows that people do not always understand the way their security software works," says Patrik Runald, Chief Security Advisor at the F-Secure Security Labs in the U.S. "The software they have chosen may be manual and curative, rather than automatic and preventative. This is often the difference between free and trial software and a paid security service, which is automatically updated."

Uncertainty Over Financial Transactions

The survey reveals that the respondents felt much safer with online banking than when using their credit cards for shopping online. In all the eight countries, the majority agreed that they were safe during online banking transactions. The countries with the most confidence were France (62%) and the USA (63%), but in Germany 39% of respondents still did not have confidence in online banking. Overall, 31% of all respondents were still unsure of their safety.

With online credit card use, only 6% of respondents strongly agreed that their credit card transactions were secure and 34% had a moderate degree of confidence when making purchases online.

Web Surfing and Phishing Emails

Phishing can appear in the form of what looks like an email from a well-known bank, which in reality is a scam seeking personal information. On average, 54% of all respondents felt fairly or very confident that they would not fall for a phishing email. However, 27% of respondents do not know whether or not they can spot phishing emails.

Disclaimer: TDS Internet Services provides this page as a benefit to customers so you can learn more about security. TDS Internet Services does not represent that this page or any information on it will meet your requirements or prevent unauthorized access to your computers, network, servers, and other equipment, or to any data information or files on any of them. The information provided by TDS Internet Services should not be construed as an endorsement of particular security products or a customer’s security practices.

Insecurity of the Internet. CONNECTION TO THE INTERNET CREATES INSECURITY. Security and disruption problems are inherent in the Internet. The very openness of the Internet creates risks that the Internet is insecure, and vulnerable to both intentional and unintentional disruption. Security breaches can occur for technical and other reasons, and, despite the implementation of security measures, we cannot guarantee that our networks are not vulnerable to unauthorized and illegal access, computer viruses and other disruptive problems. Our ability to provide our services depends in part on the reliability of the Internet and the networks of our partners, and our services can also be negatively affected by limitations inherent in the technology infrastructure supporting the Internet and the internal networks of Internet users. Customer must provide adequate information security for their own networks by using appropriately complex passwords, firewalls, and updated anti-virus and anti-spyware software.