Microsoft has released the third annual Microsoft Computing Safety Index (MCSI) report. As per the findings of the report, one in five Indians is a target of phishing attack and about 12 per cent of uses in India faced losses of Rs 7,500 each on account of identity theft.
Further, the company has pegged the annual worldwide impact of phishing and other forms of identity theft over $5 billion. Moreover, the cost of compensating people for such thefts is estimated to be about $6 billion. The report is based on a survey carried out by Microsoft between March and May 2013. In the survey, the company mapped users? online experiences for the 12 months prior. Based on the responses, Microsoft measured the online safety behaviour of about 10,500 consumers in 20 countries – Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, Spain, South Korea, Turkey, the UK, and the US.
According to Microsoft, about 34 per cent of the respondents stated that they provided limited access to strangers on social networking sites, while 38 per cent stated that they made necessary changes in their social network privacy settings to restrict access to their personal information. And, only 35 per cent respondents use a personal identification number or password to lock their mobile devices.
