Virus Attacks - The Most Common Cyber Crime in New Zealand

As per the Norton Cybercrime Report, virus infection represents the most common cyber crime attacking New Zealanders. As per the report, the systems of 61% New Zealanders have been hit by viruses or some harmful software.

Further, a survey stated that 70% of New Zealand adults have been targeted by some online crimes which include identity theft, virus attack, etc.

While 10% of Kiwis have replied to the online scams, 7% fall victim due to hacking of their social networking profile or credit cards and 2% have witnessed ID theft.

Michele Thompson, Safety Advocate of the Internet firm, stated that the survey results could be easily called a 'silent epidemic.' Thompson said that they did not realize how huge it was and the number of people being hit. Besides, she cautioned that people should be more careful and attentive while they were online, as per the news by Hawkes Bay Today on September 9, 2010.

Further, the report disclosed that almost 45% of New Zealanders stated that they would inform the police about the crime. However, 31% revealed that there was no harm to view someone's browser history or mails.

Richard Parlett, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs Spokesman, asked computer users to report crimes in order to protect others. He stated that the scams losses estimated to be around $447 Million a year, as per the news by nzherald.com on September 9, 2010.

The security experts stated that last year, Scamwatch (a Ministry website decided to caution people about scams) received nearly 3000 scam reports. However, the figure seemed to be just 'the tip of the iceberg'.

The report also states that users have adopted their online activities around cybercrime. In New Zealand, 86% of adults do not open mails from unknown people to avoid malware against 73% of the global users and 71% are extremely attentive of mail attachments from strangers.

In order to protect users, security experts have advised them to change password regularly and use a different credit card with for a limited amount of online purchases, use a different mail for online transactions, keep updated security software and do not open mails or attachments links sent by unfamiliar source.

Related article: Virus Infects Through USB Drives

» SPAMfighter News - 9/17/2010