Irreplaceable Data Lost by Europeans Due to Hacker Activity

Over one million UK households say that they have experienced important data loss because of hackers infiltrating their computers. Irreplaceable pictures, important documents and reports for work have been completely erased from vulnerable computers, either because the user is unaware of the online risks or because the solutions they did install are useless.

Based on a survey of 1,500 adults across Europe, it turns out that over 12% of UK respondents had permanently lost irreplaceable items they had stored in digital format on their PCs due to a virus. The same study shows that only 39% of the users still take the chance of storing their precious memories only on their computers.

This study made by McAffe is supposed to be a wake-up-call for those users who think that having their computer infected by viruses is only a matter of bad luck and, even if that happens, there's no real danger of losing any important data. The risk is even more difficult to understand, as 4% of the participants to this survey have admitted that without the information stored on their computers they can't get in touch with business partners and friends.