Bangalore: The alarming express of cybercrime is spreading its wings in every nook and corner, India definitely not out of its hammer. In fact it is astonishing to find out that India holds the third place as the least honest nation on internet, reveals a study conducted by Norton Cybercrime Report (more than 7,000 adults from 14 countries including India took part in research).
About a half of Indian adults have vehemently accepted the fact that they had lied on internet on innumerable occasions and this points at the major loop hole in the cybercriminal activities in our nation.
The study indicates that nearly half of all people globally are happy to tell online lies about their personal details, including their name, age, financial and relationship status; their appearance and even their nationality. And a third of all adults have assumed false identities online, from a false name through to a totally fictitious identity.
The Indian population that was surveyed spent an average of 30 hours per week online, as compared to the global average of 24 hours per week. The time spent online echoes the fact that most of the Indians are now using the Internet to fulfill all the needs from work to personal and a great deal of it on their mobiles.
About 33 percent of adults have used fake online identity and 45 percent lied about personal details. Germans tops the list in faking it with 58 percent, followed by China with 56 percent, Brazil and Indian adults stands at 55 percent respectively.
This has resulted in huge loss to people in India, it is estimated that more than 29.9 million Indian people fell prey to cyber crimes in the past one year out of which 17 percent in India have fallen prey to cyber crimes via mobile phones, suffering $4 billion direct financial losses and an additional $3.6 billion in time spent to resolve the crime.
"Sometimes people create alternate identities or screen names online if they want to say something anonymously. Research also shows that users will fictionalize their social networking profiles to fend off people who are not their friends online. If everyone's faking it and telling white lies, do you really know who you are talking to? This could easily open you up to dangers online," says online security expert Anne Collier.
The report makes further stark revelation stating adults around the world have also been on the receiving end of online scams, phishing attacks, hacking of social networking profiles and credit card fraud. Seven percent of adults have even encountered sexual predators online.
The only way to overcome these online hazards is to follow some golden rules like using a different email addresses for different accounts, the study says about 83 percent of people do not use separate email address for online purchase. It is estimated that a 74 percent of people uses debit card for purchase, it is recommended that one use one separate credit card with a small credit limit.
A 69 percent of people do not keep back up files which is an outmost urgency today. A 62 percent of people do not change password regularly or use a complex one. Use complex passwords for each online account and update them often. Last but not the least 60 percent of people do not make use of browser search adviser, it is recommended to surf the Internet safely with the right security software.
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