A consumer survey reports, “About 1.2 million online households helped keep spammers in business by purchasing a product or service advertised through spam”.


A survey was conducted by Consumer Reports which covered about 3200 households. They investigated the state of consumer security on the Internet by conducting a survey of online consumers. They collected hundreds of spam messages, infecting computers with spyware, and tested the latest protection software.

Their findings are:

Spyware infections are epidemic and continuing to spread. “Half the respondents reported a spyware infection in the past six months. Of those, 18 percent said the infection was so bad they had to erase their hard drives. To avoid spyware, 51 percent of all online users reported being more careful visiting Web sites, and 38 percent said they download free programs less frequently”.

Viruses and worms are still causing significant damage to millions of home computers. one-third of the over 3,200 households surveyed said a virus or spyware caused serious problems and they incurred financial losses within the past two years.

About 33 percent of the respondents surveyed reported getting much more spam than in the year before though the overall spam rate decreased for the year.

Six percent of respondents had submitted personal information in response to a phishing scam. Financial losses averaged nearly $400, and a few lost about $1,000.

The report says, “Macs are safer than Windows PCs for some online hazards. Only 20 percent of Mac owners surveyed reported detecting a virus in the past two years, compared with 66 percent of Windows PC owners. Just 8 percent of Mac users reported a spyware infection in the last six months vs. 54 percent of Windows PC users”.

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