Forget the ingenuity of cybercriminals to constantly find new ways of conning innocent surfers – it could be our own human nature that poses the biggest risk to our online security.
Panda Security has said that natural human traits make us more vulnerable to computer malware and that we have an inability to control our behaviour in certain situations, even though we are aware of the dangers.
This applies in situations where we are presented with files attached to emails we receive from senders we do not know, according to Panda.
Though we are well aware that the attachment could be a virus, we often go ahead and open them anyway.
Dominic Hoskins of Panda said: "We do hear of a surprising number of infections caused by people opening files that are clearly dangerous. This is despite all the warnings and all the publicity and we believe cases of this kind are simply down to human nature."
Hoskins pointed out that threats continue to change in their nature and that we need to change our behaviour accordingly.
"With the development of Web 2.0, we are increasingly drawn into more sophisticated technology. There is more interaction at every level, and while this brings obvious advantages, it does deliver far more danger to unprepared users.
"We need now to be more vigilant than ever, and to keep a check on our instinctive behaviour. Malware today is no longer about causing an infection that could crash a PC. These days it's about gaining access to bank account details and private personal data," Hoskins said.
www.infectedornot.com
Topic: Human nature risks web security (Read 525 times)