By John Leyden for The
Register
This article has been reproduced from The Register, with
permission.
The NOP Survey, sponsored by security firm Blue Coat, which
sells proxy appliances designed to block spyware from invading
corporate boundaries, found only a third (36 per cent) of
respondents understand what spyware is. One in 10 of those quizzed
thought it was "a gadget from Star Wars". Although 30 per cent of
respondents run spyware checkers on their office PC, the survey
sample suggests that they've installed programs such as Microsoft
Anti-Spyware and Spybot Search and Destroy independent of their IT
departments.
A separate online survey of 1,200 by Trend Micro in the US,
Germany, and Japan found that a greater awareness of spyware
threats, with 87 per cent of those quizzed saying they were aware
of the risk posed by net snooping apps. According to the study,
encounters with spyware are growing, especially in smaller
businesses. In the US, 40 per cent of end users surveyed have
encountered spyware at work, as compared to 14 per cent in Japan
and 23 per cent in Germany. In all three countries, end users from
small and medium sized organisations reported a greater number of
encounters than larger enterprises.
A quarter (26 per cent) of American small business workers
stated that they had fallen victim to spyware while at work. In
larger US organisations this figure drops to 21 per cent, the
survey found. Only seven per cent of small biz workers surveyed in
Japan and Germany were aware of falling victim to spyware. Many
respondents to the survey said that they are more likely to engage
in risky online behavior if they have an IT department for support,
a factor which compounds security risks, according to Ed English,
Trend's chief anti-spyware technologist.
© The Register
2005
