My colleagues in Hungary have released some slightly alarming statistics about malware awareness in their part of the world. Research carried out on their behalf by NRC suggests that a significant proportion of Hungarian Internet users don't even know what AV software is installed on their computer (or, presumably, if anything is installed.)

http://www.eset.hu/hirek/holgyek-tessek-vedekezni?back=%2Fhirek

Out of 1000 people surveyed:

  • More than half of the group of adults aged between 18 and 69 interviewed update their security software and care enough to renew the licence properly, and install the new version.  
  • About 1/3 of them know the name of the solution he or she use, but don't care about updating it.
  • 16% can't name the security program they use
  • 20% of the men pay attention to configuration issues
  • 25% don't know what security solution they use on their computer

ESET's man in Hungary, Zoltan Kiss, said:

"The worst thing is that today's malware is not intended to cause destruction, but to make money. Because there is no obvious damage, the owners of infected machines often don't realize the machine has been compromised, even while cyber-criminals are stealing credit card data remotely, or using those machines to send spam. The first step towards defending systems is to learn how to use antivirus software properly."

Last month, Zoltan made something of a splash on radio and TV in relation to a panel study asking: "Do you ever turn off your anti-virus in spite of warnings so that you can look at anything you want to?" I hope to check that out later: http://www.eset.hu/hirek/kivancsisagunk_fertoz?back=/hirarchivum.

David Harley CITP FBCS CISSP
ESET Senior Research Fellow