The survey, conducted by market research firm Ipsos for the group, interviewed almost 4,000 adult online users in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom and Spain.

Almost half of respondents said they have opened spam, and about 1 in 10 have either clicked on links or downloaded attachments from spam messages. Four percent replied to the messages and another 4 percent even forwarded them to other people.

“That’s a very, very large number of people who are at risk,” Ipsos spokesman Nicolas Boyon said.

Most of those who have opened spam said they weren’t sure what the message was, clicked it by mistake or were trying to unsubscribe. Interestingly, almost 1 in 5 said they did so because they wanted to see what would happen.

While less than half of users have ever heard the term “botnet,” 82 percent said they understood the concept – a network of infected computers used by criminals for malicious purposes. That’s a 5 percent increase from last year. Sixty-three percent of respondents in the United States, however, said they have contracted computer viruses in the past.

Misjudging problem

The results of the survey echoed some of the recurring points raised at the 18th gathering of anti-messaging experts: threats continue to become more abundant and diverse while users still underestimate the problem and consumer education is lacking.

Internet providers, security vendors, consumer advocates and government representatives also voiced growing concerns over spam distributed through social networks, the growing number of hijacked computers in countries such as Brazil and Vietnam where broadband use is rising, and targeted attacks preying on people from all kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds and flying under the radar.

Source: articles.sfgate.com