Employee Use of Web - Most Common Method of Malware Infections

A new survey conducted by Symantec Hosted Services in collaboration with SC Magazine has acknowledged how much of a part employee use of e-mail and web services plays when it comes to malware infections and how employee access is both observed and controlled.

According to the experts, the report has recognized opinions about employee use of the internet and how malware is downloaded and has come up with some expected and interesting outcomes.

As per the data available from survey, it was discovered that employee use of the web was apparently the most common way to malware infection, as 67.6% of respondents choose this option ahead of e-mail (28.4%) and instant messenger (3.9%).

In terms of controlling employee access to the web, blocking some particular URLs is the most preferred option as 64.7% of the organizations with which the respondents are employed follow it. However, 59.8% follow rules based upon the type of website, 38.2% follow rules by users, and 20.6% apply rules based on time.

A question (multiple- answer) aimed to demonstrate the awareness of respondents about their some actions that could result in malware infection. The answers showed that they were fairly well-informed with the topic. 89.2% of the respondents think that their computer could be infected by downloading files, 85.3% were aware that visiting a website could result into infection, and 84.3% think that following an ad on a website is a risky matter.

Moreover, 66.7% of the respondents believe that a user should execute an action on a website such as click a link, download a file, etc. to get his system infected, whereas merely 33.3% of respondents agreed with the contradictory statement.

Commenting on the issue, Dan Bleaken, Senior malware Data Analyst at Symantec Hosted Services, said that there were numerous routes by which they could abuse the components of the website. The rate of attacks was rapidly increasing, so home users and staff was at danger not just from the web only, but from all protocols, as reported by SC magazine on September 1, 2010.

Security experts advised users that they should only visit legal websites to reduce the threat of malware infection and survey unveiled that 73.5% of the respondents agree with this statement.

Related article: Employees Pose Internal Risk in European Businesses

» SPAMfighter News - 9/13/2010