Pinoys victims of cybercrime, says survey

NEARLY 90% of Filipino Internet users have fallen prey to computer viruses, online “scams” and identity theft, survey results released by a storage and systems management firm on Tuesday showed.

Symantec Corp. said that the “2010 Norton Cybercrime Report: The Human Impact” indicated that cybercrimes have become a “silent digital epidemic.”

“The report revealed that Filipino victims’ strongest reactions are anger with 60%, feeling upset with 58%, and feeling cheated with 50%,” Effendy Ibrahim, Symantec’s Internet safety advocate and consumer business head for Asia, told reporters.

The online survey was conducted in April with 556 respondents aged 18 to 64 years old.

Mr. Ibrahim said one in five said it was the fault of criminals, while one-third felt highly responsible for cybercrime incidents.

The survey said 38% responded to online scams while 34% responded to phishing, in which hackers attempt to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by making a duplicate of a legitimate Web site.

Mr. Ibrahim said: “There are 26% of the respondents who said that the biggest issue they faced when dealing with cybercrime was the emotional impact of the situation as they experienced feelings of anger, stress or embarrassment and 40% said their biggest fear when it comes to being a victim is the financial loss.”

However, the report said 34% of the respondents are of the opinion that it is alright to download music or movie without paying, while 22% said it is legal to secretly view someone’s browser history files without the owner’s knowledge.

Meanwhile, Martini Cruz of the National Bureau of Investigation in Central Luzon said in the same event that from January to July, there has been 100 reports of cybercrime filed in his office. — Aura Marie P. Dagcutan, Businessmirror