Innumerable Chinese Internet Users without Anti-virus Protection

CNNIC, i.e. China Internet Network Information Center, and CNCERT, i.e. China's National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team recently conducted a survey, according to which, approximately 4.4% of Chinese online users don't have any security application loaded onto their PCs.

According to report, this percentage has increased from 3.9% during 2009. Considering that CNNIC figures are correct, it's suggestive that going back late 2009, 384 Million people reportedly went online in China. This implies that the number of Internet users devoid of an anti-virus application was almost 17 Million then.

Moreover, since 30% of Chinese are currently engaged in Web surfing, these statistics demonstrate that there will be precise conditions for expansive increase during the forthcoming years.

More outcomes of the survey further indicated the security hazards' magnitude on the Chinese Internet. For example, almost 50% of Chinese Web-surfers possess virtual property like virtual coins or online game items that are utilized on websites for social networking, the survey finds.

Of that percentage, 14.6% stated that they'd been victims of theft when their login credentials were snatched that resulted in property loss. That is, phishing scams or other kinds of Internet fraud had phished or cheated them in some form or the other.

Interestingly, according to the survey, Internet crooks most commonly target attacks on online games and try to harvest users' credentials with which to defraud the latter off huge sums of dollars, at times.

The report also stated that people in China invested 15.3 Billion Yuan (USD 2.2 Billion) in 'service fees' during 2009 for cleaning the systems following cyber-attacks. To obtain so-called anti-malware protection, they most popularly downloaded non-chargeable anti-virus programs. However, these programs are typically harmful as they may result in the download of malicious content on an end-user's computer or result in the hijacking of his system with malware.

To conclude, it's advisable that computer users have their Internet security defenses deployed and made up-to-date. They also need to be skeptical of e-mail solicitations in addition to websites they intend accessing. For, this'll help foil incidents that can otherwise subject them to cyber-criminals' exploitation or cause loss of freedom whilst using the Internet.

Related article: Internet Threat Volumes Overwhelm Security Companies

» SPAMfighter News - 4/10/2010