Men More Vulnerable Than Women on Social Networks

A recent study made by Bitdefender shows the difference between men and women when it comes to keeping their information private on social networking websites.

The survey which included 1649 individuals from the United States and the United Kingdom shows that men are risktakers and they will in many cases ignore privacy policies and settings much more than women do.

Even though most of the respondents were aware of the threats that might come from the internet, a thing proven by the fact that all of them had some sort of security software installed on their computers, many will publish their location and befriend unknown people without much hesitation.

The figures show that 64% of women will reject friend requests coming from unknown individuals, while only 55% of the male subjects admitted doing so. 24% of the latter category also fail to restrict access to their profiles.

Women cherish their privacy more, only 16% claiming they don't restrict access to their details. A quarter of the guys who participated in the survey stated they don't protect their location while online, while only 21% of the female subjects implement the same practices.

It turns out that US male residents are more risk-takers than the ones from the United Kingdom and also, the awareness level seems to rise in proportion with the subject's age.

“Men expose themselves to online threats much more than women, especially when it comes to accepting friend requests from strangers,” said George Petre, senior social media security researcher at Bitdefender.

“On the good side, only a quarter of users are willing to share their location on social networks. However, most applications, especially the ones built for mobile phones, are designed to allow access to this type of information by default, which leads to embarrassing or even dangerous situations.”