UAE Users Fear to Shop Online

In its yearly consumer survey for 2007 involving over 400 United Arab Emirate (UAE) residents, Symantec, revealed that about 75% of them do not transacts online because they believe that the Internet is risky and lacks security, as reported by itp.net on March 4, 2008.

Another result, rather shocking from earlier one, is that a majority of 78% of respondents would conduct online transactions without any security protection. This has increased worry, when it is compared with the 2006 results. Only 47% of those surveyed used some security measures on their computers.

In addition, credit card embezzlement and hacking remained the key issues for Internet security for the second consecutive year, although, 92% of all respondents never encountered any kind of online fraud.

The survey, which also assessed the understanding of cyber threats on the part of the residents, found that 89% of UAE Internet users do not have any knowledge of a 'botnet' while a good 54% are unaware of 'spam.'

Con Mallon, EMEA Consumer Product Marketing Director of Symantec Corporation, said that the survey findings demonstrate an absence of consumer willingness to proactively defend themselves against computer hackers even when several security solutions are easily available and that are easy to install, as reported by dbfx on February 4, 2008.

Mallon further said that consumer security solutions once installed require very little effort to use and run for updates, which are generally automatic. It is, therefore, important that consumers begin taking initiative to enhance their education about online risks and methods of protection so that it is easy to interact, bank and shop online fearlessly.

Besides, Symantec's recent Internet Security Threat Report for October 2007 supports the above findings by commenting that the UAE continues to be a key target for malicious Internet activity. Also, the country ranks 40 in having the most bot-infected computers, 66 for hosting phishing activity and 51 for spamming globally. The report also notes that spam, which currently rates at 78.5% of total e-mail traffic, would keep on increasing in the currently year of 2008.

Related article: U.S. Businesses Lose $712 Per Worker Due to Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 3/17/2008