British Internet Users Lax In Security

[HardOCP News]

If the information in this study is indeed correct, one in ten Britons fall victim to online fraud. The article goes on to say that many of the people surveyed didn’t use any form of spam filter and most use the same password for everything. Yikes.

12 percent of 2006 Internet users in Britain were the victims of online fraud due primarily to lack of security, The Telegraph said. Along those lines, the study found that 25 percent of Internet users do not have anti-spam software and 60 percent admitted to using the same password for numerous online sites.

 

[DefineByte]

It doesn't surprise me. Most normal (i.e. non-techie) people I meet are pretty clueless in even the most basic of security procedures. It seems they don't really see computers as a tool (that can be misused) and instead expect it to hold their hand the whole way.

Having said that, I don't have a spam filter installed and have never had a single spam email.

 

[-Sean Casey]

This should not be surprising. Most normal people do not like to use different passwords, and if they do they end up writing them down and putting them on sticky notes attached to their monitors. The attitude of a typical user is "I don't have anything people will want so I'll pick the same passwords for convinence". The biggest flaw in computer security is the user. Only training and teaching people to be paranoid when online can solve that, and even then some people still wont follow it.