There is the chances of infecting one consumer out of three consumers and three in 10 businesses by the unexpected malwares.
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A study has said, “consumers will spend USD 22 billion for checking malware attacks this year while other business companies will invest a large amount of USD 114 billion in dealing with such malicious softwares”.
The study conducted by market research group IDC and commissioned by Microsoft Corporation, there is the chances of infection by unexpected malware in one consumer out of three consumers and three in ten businesses.
Generally malwares and malicious software are intended to damage or disable some of the computers and computers systems.
Microsoft India also said in release that consumers will spend 1.5 billion hours and USD 22 billion for detecting, repairing and recovering from the impact of malware. Similarly, global enterprises will spend USD 114 billion to deal with the impact of a malware induced cyber attack.
The use of pirated software to same money is the main cause of spreading malwares in the computer system. Using such pirated software can infect by unexpected malware in one computer out three and 3 out of 10 businesses.
“Software is pirated in order to save money, however, the reality is that with pirated and counterfeit software, the user ends up paying for malware, Trojan, adware and other harmful viruses,” Microsoft India Director (Genuine Software Initiative) Sumeet Khanna said.
The survey was conducted in 10 countries that covered 1,104 consumer respondents, 973 business user respondents and 268 CIO/IT manager respondents. It reports that 32 percent of their PCs come without operating systems and 12 percent did not install security updates. Similarly, 30 percent of consumer respondents did not install security updates and nearly 70 percent of consumers who use pirated software had problems with it. While the security threats are increasing according to Nettitude, ignoring security updates can cause issues later. Apart from that, 64 percent of the respondents who had used counterfeit software experienced security issues, while 45 percent said counterfeit software slowed their PCs and software had to be uninstalled.
48 percent of respondents said that their greatest concern with using counterfeit software was data loss and 29 percent were most concerned with identity theft.
Another exposing risk to the workplace was that higher percentage of corporate users download software unauthorized as per their corporate policy.
Embedding malware with counterfeit software is a new method for criminals to prey on computer users who are unaware of the potential danger, Kanna said.
– PTI
