Security news28 November 2006
Shopping online this holiday? Be careful, warns Sophos With 71% shopping on the web, Sophos offers security tips
Experts at SophosLabs, Sophos's global network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, are urging online shoppers to be safe this holiday season and are offering security tips that, if followed, will significantly reduce the risk of being a victim of an online attack.
A web poll of 280 computer users, conducted by Sophos, has revealed that 71% will shop online this holiday. According to APACS, the UK trade association for payments, an estimated £1.2 million ($ 2.3 million USD) is lost to card fraud everyday, with an incident of online fraud occurring every nine seconds.
Survey results
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Are you doing any holiday shopping online this year?
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| Yes |
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| No |
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A report by Sophos earlier this year showed that 75% of all phishing emails were directed to eBay or PayPal users. These are global brands (rather than local banks) and are used by millions of people around the world.
"Reasonable levels of paranoia when shopping online can save you from being targeted by cybercriminals," said Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos. "People should treat the internet as they would a power tool: it can take the pain out of a task, providing it is used responsibly. Safety precautions are there for a reason."
Security tips for online shoppers
- Ensure that a firewall, anti-virus and all software patches are installed and up-to-date
- Enter sensitive information only from a computer you know is secure
- Visit and make purchases only from reputable sites
- Never follow links from an unsolicited email or spam message
- Ensure your passwords are known to you alone and are long enough to be unguessable
* Sophos web poll, 280 respondents, November 2006
Disclaimer: Please bear in mind that this poll is not scientific and is provided for information purposes only. Sophos makes no guarantees about the accuracy of the results other than that they reflect the choices of the users who participated.
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About Sophos
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.
