Most Vulnerable Cities to Online Threats in the U.S.

AVG Technologies, a world renowned security provider, has recently released the results of a survey trying to determine which U.S. city inhabitants are most gullible when it comes to digital scams.

The residents of 35 major cities were put to the test and the results were conclusive.

The study showed that 40 percent of Americans don't use a password to protect their mobile devices and 34 percent of those that do, have not changed it in the past year. Also, 75 out of 100 mobile phone users don't back up their data, relying on their service providers to make a restoration in case something might happen.

Results are not reassuring when it comes to PC users either.

23 percent of them never back up the data on their personal computer and 38 percent admit that they share their passwords with at least one other person.

Almost half the participants of the survey never run a manual anti-virus scan to check for infections on their computing devices, while more than 60 percent never bother to use an identity monitoring service.

JR Smith, CEO of the company stated, in regards to this study, that “recent news demonstrates that consumers need to be more vigilant than ever about safeguarding the personal information sitting on their PCs and mobile devices”.

He also said that even though customers are getting smarter about online threats, they still don't fully understand why they should protect each and every of their internet enabled devices.

So here is a list of the cities that took part in the survey, starting with the most vulnerable to online threats:

1. San Antonio
2. Tampa, Fla.
3. Atlanta
4. Dallas
5. Oklahoma City
6. Charlotte, N.C.
7. Detroit
8. Denver
9. Washington D.C.
10. Sacramento, Calif.
11. Salt Lake City
12. Portland, Ore.
13. Philadelphia
14. St. Louis
15. Baltimore
16. San Jose, Calif.
17. Indianapolis
18. Seattle
19. Memphis, Tenn.
20. Houston
21. Louisville, Ky.
22. Boston
23. Kansas City, Mo.
24. San Francisco
25. Riverside, Calif.
26. Austin, Texas
27. Los Angeles
28. Chicago
29. Phoenix
30. Las Vegas
31. Nashville
32. Miami
33. Cincinnati
34. New York City
35. Minneapolis

Besides the disturbing statistics, there are some good sides to the report. AVG discovered that out of the 8000 participants, 72 percent check their bank accounts weekly for potential errors and the same percentage has never been fooled by online scams.

In its quest to keep internet users safe, the security solutions provider has launched the 2012 version of AVG Internet Security, which according to their press release should be simple, dependable and fast.