14 DAY TRIAL // According to a survey conducted by antivirus vendor PC Tools, 25 percent of Web users do not fully understand threats that spread through zero-day vulnerabilities in popular software. Meanwhile, women are more savvy than men when it comes to reusing passwords, despite the fact that the latter are better informed about Web security.
A number of 4,500 people that visited the PC Tools website participated in the survey. The company also conducted street interviews in France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and the UK. Separate results were compiled for different regions and then compared.
One interesting find is that one in ten Brits don't use any security software when surfing online, while a third of the ones that do never update it. These numbers are considerable higher than in other European countries such as France or Germany, and are particularly important, because according to a PayPal study, English-speaking users are the preferred target of cybercriminals.
The French are the Web users who reuse their passwords the most (56%). In comparison, 45 percent of Benelux (Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg), 35 percent of UK and only 16 percent of German nationals, do it. Splitting the results by gender revealed that 47% of men use the same password for all websites, something that only 26% of women do.
Women are also more cautious when it comes to opening links or attachments sent by alleged friends, with only half of them doing it without checking the real source. In contrast, two thirds of men admitted that they normally do this without paying attention to their origin. Meanwhile, men seem to be better informed than women about the malware distribution channels, including IM, email and websites. 44 percent of women were unaware that legit websites could also be used to spread malware.
"While consumers are generally security conscious, they are not yet security savvy. The increased use of the internet among consumers, almost all of whom are now online on a daily basis, is providing a lucrative market for cybercriminals and as a result, we are seeing more and more sophisticated techniques that lure consumers into clicking on malicious links or downloading malicious files," commented Michael Greene, vice president of product strategy at PC Tools.