Bangalore: Consumers have suffered a loss of almost $8.5 billion over the last two years because of viruses, spyware, and phishing attacks, says an article appeared in Information Week, quoting the findings published by the Consumer Reports National Research Center in its September issue.

The survey involving 2,071 online households, says that consumers have one in six chances of being victimized by cyber-crime in this year as compared to one in four chances in 2007. While 19 percent of respondents didn't have antivirus software on their computers, 75 percent of respondents didn't have an anti-phishing toolbar.

According to the report, there are seven common online blunders that make one vulnerable to virus threats - 1. Failing to keep antivirus software up to date, 2. Clicking on e-mail links to access financial Web sites, 3. Using a single password for all online accounts, 4. Downloading free software, 5. Assuming that Macs are safer than Windows PCs. 6. Clicking on 'scareware' pop-up ads that claim your computer is at risk, 7. Shopping online without taking extra precautions. Therefore, falling for a phishing scam could be characterized as more of an issue of user gullibility than of platform or application security.

Consumer reports also point out that Mac users fall for phishing scams at about the same rate as PC users, yet very few of them use anti-phishing toolbars than PC users. As Apple's Safari Web browser does not have built-in phishing protection, the report recommends using the recent versions of Firefox or Opera instead of Safari0.

But computer security problems have been good for the computer business as consumers replaced some 2.1 million computers because of malware infections. Hence, security problems act as a main motivation for buying a new PC or Mac as cited by consumer reports.