Majority of people consider cyber-espionage acceptable: Report
By siliconindia   |   Monday, 09 August 2010, 21:37 IST   |    11 Comments
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Majority of people consider cyber-espionage acceptable: Report
Bangalore: Sophos, the IT security and control firm has published the mid-year 2010 Security Threat Report. The report reveals the findings of a survey named 'Sophos online survey' into attitudes towards cyber warfare and detailing other trends and developments in IT security for the first half of 2010. There were 1077 respondents of the survey, who were asked questions including whether they thought spying via hacking or malware attacks is an acceptable practice and if the computer networks of private companies in other countries are legitimate targets. The survey found that 63 percent of the respondents believe that it is acceptable for their country to spy on other nations by hacking or installing malware. It also revealed that 1 in 14 respondents believe that crippling denial of service attacks against another country's communication or financial websites are acceptable during peacetime. Apart from this, the survey also found out that 32 percent of the respondents believe that countries should be allowed to plant malware and hack into private foreign companies in order to spy for economic advantage. "It's perhaps surprising that so many people seem to think that using the internet as a tool for spying, or even as a weapon, is acceptable practice," said Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos. "Hacking and virus-writing evolved into organized criminal activity, with the lure of large amounts of money and now, in 2010, it could be argued that the third motivation is using malware and the internet to gain commercial, political and military advantage over others", Cluley added.

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