Online shopping has less takers

New Delhi: F-Secure announced results from its annual Online Wellbeing Survey. This third-party survey of Internet users aged 20-40 in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany-and for the first time-Italy, India and Hong Kong, tested respondents' awareness of online security threats for themselves and their children.

The survey uncovered Internet users' feelings of personal online security with regards to online banking, children's safety while surfing the web, and credit card information when shopping online. Overall, 50 percent of respondents were confident about their security when banking online. However, only six percent of respondents felt secure in making credit card purchases online.

Web surfing and phishing e-mails

Phishing can appear in the form of what looks like an e-mail from a well-known bank, which in reality is a scam seeking personal information. On average, 54 percent felt fairly or very confident they would not fall for a phishing e-mail. However, 27 percent of respondents do not know whether or not they can spot phishing e-mails. In Hong-Kong, 26 percent of respondents feel they cannot spot phishing e-mails. Although in other countries such as the UK (68 percent), Canada (60 percent) and Italy (67 percent), respondents are far more confident in their ability to spot such e-mails.

Children and the Internet

At the core of F-Secure's 'Online Wellbeing' is family security when using the Internet. Parents are increasingly worried about their children not being protected from unsuitable content including pornography and violent imagery. When asked the question, "My kids are safe when they are online," over a third of respondents across all countries could neither agree or disagree with the statement. Parents and guardians do not know whether children are safe online or not. The vast majority (54 percent) of respondents did not agree that their children were safe online. Only two percent (strongly agree) of respondents in India feel their children are safe. In Germany, 69 percent strongly disagreed and disagreed with the statement.

Online banking

Surprisingly, respondents feel safer during online banking than when using their credit card for shopping online. In all eight surveyed countries, the majority agreed that they are safe during online banking transactions. The countries that have the most confidence are France (62 percent) and the US (63 percent), but in Germany, 39 percent still do not have confidence in online banking. On a whole, 31 percent of all respondents were still unsure of their safety.

The survey was carried out by a third party in December 2008 across 2019 Internet users aged 20-40 in USA, Canada, France, Germany, UK, Italy, India and Hong Kong. There were approximately 200 respondents surveyed per country. F-Secure asked respondents a series of basic online security questions and, using a Likert scale, asked them to rate the extent to which they were confident in the security of given online activities.