Majority of People Consider Cyber-Espionage Acceptable

A survey conducted by Sophos, which tried to determine how people view state-sponsored cyber-espionage has revealed alarmant attitudes regarding the practice. Over sixty of respondents considered that using malware and hacking to spy on other countries is acceptable.

Spying efforts allegedly conducted by hackers hired by other governments or companies have been the subject of news articles for years. China is often pointed as the origin of many such attacks and a lot of people seems to agree that industrial espionage is common in Asia.

For example, whenever there's a serious security breach that involves senstive government information, South Korea immediately blames its communist neighbours to the north. Meanwhile, a cyber attack which targeted Google and thirty other big US companies earlier this year, was attributed to the government in Beinjing.

However, instead of debating how much of a threat this kind of incidents really are or if governments are really behind them, Sophos tried to find out what regular people think about such practices. A survey conducted by the company on 1077 users revealed that 40% of them would agree with state-sponsored cyber-espionage in times of war. Another 23% of respondents believe that such efforts are acceptable at any time.

In addition, almost half of the polled users think that cyber attacks intended to disrupt another country's communications or financial systems should be performed during wartime, while 7% responded that their government should do this regardless. When it comes to spying on other companies for economic advantage, the acceptance level is a little lower. Only of 23% of users agreed to such tactics while at war and 9% at all times.

"It's perhaps surprising that so many people seem to think that using the internet as a tool for spying, or even as a weapon, is acceptable practice. After all, by giving the green light to these kind of activities you'd also have to expect to be on the receiving end too. Maybe yours will be the next company probed by an overseas power?" Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, commented.

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