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Bad Habits of Young Men Make Them More Susceptible to Spyware

As per Webroot, an anti-spyware firm, males in the age group of 18-29 are more prone to spyware attack as they have a poor approach to surf net. They have more chances to download files, open an instant message and visit porn sites.

The probability of computer infection was raised by the young males' bad online behavior. It includes opening an instant message (66%), visiting adult sites (56%) and downloading files (65%). On the other hand, young women said that their activities are limited to safer zones only. 91% women said that they had not visited a porn entertainment site ever and 61% stated that they never click on pop-ups.

Britain observes the highest rate of spyware infection than any other country in Europe. Research by Webroot has found that average PC houses around 30.5 pieces of spyware. In UK, approx 90% consumer PCs has some or the other form of spyware fixed on it.

David Moll, CEO, Webroot, said that probability of infection with spyware increases manifold while performing some particular activities, like visiting social networking Websites (such as MySpace.com) and surfing porn sites. These Websites have turned into the breeding ground of Spyware.

One cannot notice the spyware infection symptoms for months. spyware silently record the personal information, like passwords and online banking details. Once noticed, the user start taking some action, but often, it is too late.

Infection symptoms can vary considerably. 69% users reported the sluggish performance of PC and around 50% experienced increased pop-ups. Some other symptoms are mysterious results of search, unexplained changes in homepage, very slow access of Internet and unidentified charges of telephone.

Daniel Mothersdale, EMEA Director, Webroot, stated that spyware awareness is a must to check this problem. Users are recommended to install anti-spyware and anti-virus software to protect themselves from such threats. firewall use is also necessary to prevent the Internet access without the intimation of user.

Related article: Bot Operator Infects Rubbermaid Computers And Sentenced to Prison

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