Aussies going underprotected online, claims security vendor

Stephen Withers
Friday, 04 September 2009 09:42

Opinion and Analysis

It's probably no big deal if you reuse passwords in multiple online forums where you use different names and never reveal any personal information, but if I were a serious user of Facebook, Twitter or one of the other major social networks I'd be much more protective of my credentials than people seem to be.

I have mixed feelings about finding that 55% of Australians ignore alerts from their security software, largely because there's two sorts of 'ignore' in this context.

I admit I sometimes ignore security alerts, but I do so thoughtfully. For example, should this new application be communicating over the Internet? What server is it talking to? Most of the time it's simply checking for updates.

The second type of 'ignore' is to blindly proceed regardless of all warnings. If that's what people are doing, it is a serious worry. But it would be no big surprise - I recall hearing a US security specialist say something along the lines of "If a dialog said 'Clicking OK will download software that will steal your banking details, cause your PC to pump out spam, and run as slow as a dog, as well as letting you visit this site', a lot of people will simply think 'just show me the boobies' and click the OK button."

Similarly, should we be concerned that 45% of respondents open attachments or links received from friends? It depends on how many of them really aren't running suitable security software, which is something the PC Tools survey doesn't tell us.

"Be alert, not alarmed" seems an appropriate reaction to this survey.

PC Tools surveyed 4500 people online, and conducted face-to-face surveys in  Australia (100 respondents), Benelux, France, Germany, and the UK.