Men more likely to fall prey to online scams, spam and viruses

Female computer and Internet users are less likely to succumb to threats such as viruses and receive junk in their inboxes than male users – that’s according to research carried out by MORI on behalf of StreamShield Networks.

In every category surveyed, women experienced fewer difficulties when online. For example, 46 percent of men reported that their PC had been infected with a virus compared with 38 percent of women, and 50 percent of men experienced excessive spam versus 38 percent of women.  Men also experienced more unwanted pop up ads, with 74 percent reporting this compared with 69 percent of women.

In addition, whilst 29 percent of male PC and Internet users reported having received a fraudulent email from a source pretending to be a financial institution asking for their banking details, this was true of only 16 percent of female users. Similarly, whilst 8 percent of men had experienced online fraud, only 4 percent of women had been victims.

Despite these figures there is some positive news for men as they appear to have better overall awareness of Internet threats.  For instance, nearly all (97 percent) male PC and Internet users know what a computer virus is versus 92 percent of female users. The same is also true of other terms including Spyware (66 percent of men are aware of the term compared with 47 percent of women), Adware (51 percent men, 29 percent women), Phishing (37 percent men, 18 percent women) and Key loggers (27 percent men, 10 percent women).

Geoff Bennett, director of product marketing at StreamShield comments: “The research findings show there is a clear difference between the male and female experience when online. One possible reason for this is that the two sexes may be using the Internet differently. Either way, men do appear to be more vulnerable than women when online and are laying themselves open to falling victim to fraud scams and other annoyances.”

MORI interviewed a sample of 1,005 adults across Britain, aged 16+ from 5th – 7th August 2005. 

•Date: 31st August 2005 • Region: UK/World • Type: Article •Topic: ISM
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