Welcome to India, where two in every three Internet users are more scared of a public Wi-Fi network than a public toilet. Although we will not get into the specifics of which of the two has a greater density of viruses, we would like to highlight this and a variety of other shocking facts that have emerged from Norton by Symantec’s latest Cybersecurity Insights report.
If the report is to be believed, the Indian public today remarkably fears their online safety even over real life threats. Take for instance the fact that 54% of the 17,125 Internet users who participated in the study worry about stolen credit card information even over someone nicking their wallet. Eight in ten are also okay with allowing a friend to take their Chevy out for a spin than disclose their embarrassing Facebook password. In fact, 64% find not wearing a seatbelt safer than pushing their credit card and financial information to the Cloud.
Surprising, isn’t it? Not quite, considering how vulnerable an Indian Internet user is on the web. About 113 million Indians or about a third of all our users are affected by online crimes. About 52% either have been a victim of credit-card fraud or know someone who has. Does the Nigerian Prince ring a bill?
On an average, Indians would also lose nearly 30 hours of their total Internet usage as a consequence of cybercrime. That roughly translates to 21,000 days or 58 years of lost online time just for the people who participated in this study. This time could have been utilised on something far more productive, such as, attacking politicians on Twitter. The study also claims that they lose an average of 16,558 rupees in cyber-fraud, which translates to Rs. 28 crores for just the participants of this study. You could imagine how much time and money the entire Indian Internet user-base would have lost.
This also has a severe impact on the emotions and temperament of the average Internet user. 80% of them would feel earth-shatteringly devastated if their personal financial information is compromised and 36% would feel as sad as a Monday morning if subject to an Internet attack. This is a very serious issue, since Indian kind is a very emotional kind, and we wouldn’t want to see our working population deal with emotional trauma and not work to their optimal capacity. Cyber attacks must be stopped if the future of our country is important.