Complacency of young web users is increasing cybercrime

A new report by AVG shows that cybercrime has exploded over the last decade and for the most part, this is due to the “surprising complacency of younger users”.

The research, which is based on a survey commissioned by AVG and carried out by Future Poll, asked 7000 users about their online habits.

Cybercrime is becoming more and more sophisticated yet many users continue to put their data at risk as the world becomes more connected to, and reliant upon, the internet.

A third of the Europeans surveyed said that they don’t update their antivirus software and 2% don’t even have protection, leading to the weak link in the security chain being from “wetware”, or human actions.

As computer crime becomes increasingly more monetised, criminals have found new ways of stealing not only users data, but also their cash.

Only 4% of users in France said they were concerned about viruses affecting smartphones, which have risen hugely in the past six months and can be used to sign up users to premium rate SMS services.

On personal computers almost 1 in 10 users failed to keep their security software up to date, the 18-35 age group was the worst for this. Over half of UK users in this group said that they never update their AV software, surprising for those who have grown up in the digital age.

The report suggests that “as they grow older and gain more wealth and responsibility, then we could witness a cybercrime disaster affecting not just personal users but also businesses and governments.”

J R Smith, one of the authors of the report said: “It’s increasingly evident that each unprotected individual makes us all vulnerable, so it’s vital that as a global society we find ways to address this trend and ensure that we are protected together. We’re securing people’s digital life, or as we like to say: Providing Peace of Mind to the Connected World.”

There are a number of ways that these threats could grow in the future including: Car hacking, prisoners being sprung from jails, home security systems reprogrammed and hacks into the national grid.

Spyware has seen the biggest single change across Europe in recent years and cybercriminals use this most often in order to steal financial information and identities.

Doing so through smartphones has risen sharply and the report shows that many mobile owners just don’t recognise the risk of having “a pc in your pocket” to their finances.

However, the single biggest threat to our future cyber safety is not from devices, but from human users. Whilst adding more devices into the mix increases risk, it is the ignorance of users that will ensure we can’t obtain “herd immunity”.

This means that if all of the online population used AV products and were aware of the risks, then we could effectively all gain immunity from threats. However, just an irresponsible few affect the entire population as malware continues to spread and becomes harder to pick up.

The complacency in the younger generation, according to the report, is due to users not placing a high value on their online possessions, alongside a series of myths which they think protect them.

Many users think they are “invincible” and can’t become infected, others believe they are still protected following the end of a free trial and some believe that they only get infected if they visit certain dodgy sites, such as pornographic pages.

However, the biggest upcoming threat is most likely to come through social engineering, where users click on dodgy links on social networking sites.

In today’s world, many users believe that it’s not their responsibility to “police the web” but in reality it is down to all users to ensure they are protected in order to provide a safer online environment.