Is your data safe and secure?

Effendy Ibrahim, director of Asia Consumer Business for Symantec, a leading provider of IT security, says men are more likely to be victims of cyber-crime than women, largely because the former like to talk to strangers.
According to the latest Norton cyber-crime report, men spend more time on the Internet, clocking an average of 25 hours per week, and spend more time talking to strangers than women.
Hence, 72 per cent, or more than 7 in 10 men, have experienced cyber-crime compared to 65 per cent, or less than two thirds, of women.
Men are also more vulnerable because nearly four times as many men than women view adult and pornographic sites, while twice as many gamble online and go online dating.
This leads more men to flishing sites where malicious software is passed on and personal data is stolen. With the help of Botnet, these malwares facilitate various kinds of attacks on popular websites such as denial of services by overwhelming these sites with unsolicited requests or by sending millions of e-mails.
The cyber-crime survey, conducted in February this year, covers a total of 12,000 adults. It also found that there are as many as one million victims of cyber-crime per day around the world, resulting in an estimated US$388 billion in total costs to date.
The money cost is $114 billion while the time cost is $274 billion. For example, victims have to spend on average 10 days to recover their lost identity or passwords for their bank accounts.
Globally, the most common cyber-crimes are viruses/malware (54 per cent), scams (21 per cent) and mobile threats (10 per cent).
The survey also shows that the millennial generation (those born after 1980) spends about 28 hours online per week, compared to 21 hours by the baby boomers (those born before the 1970s).
About 75 per cent of the millennial generation are cyber-crime victims compared to 61 per cent for the baby boomer generation.
In fact, there is also a strong correlation between “physical” crime and cyber-crime victims, largely because most of the victims share the same risk attitude.
Ibrahim also says that using shared computers is another risk. A recent case study in Thailand shows that a mother’s bank account password was stolen after her son had played online games on a shared PC.
According to a police investigation, the son had downloaded some short-cuts while playing the online game, giving malware access to the PC, which then stole the mother’s bank account password the following day.
In addition, mobile devices such as tablet computers and smart-phones are now widely popular, so security threats have shifted, especially on open-platform devices such as Android-operated gadgets, since applications can be downloaded and malicious codes inserted to do the dirty work.
The mobile threats will rise rapidly, as 44 per cent of all mobile phone owners globally use their device to access the Internet.
In response, Norton will introduce a new personalised security service on a subscription basis, called Norton One, in the middle of next year, so that consumers will have the option to select a number of solutions that work for them.
One membership will cover each of the connected devices in the household – PCs, Macs and mobile – with a single user interface, while new devices can be added or old ones deleted conveniently.