39% of Australians Victims of Cyber Crime?
June 10th, 2008 Drazen Drazic Posted in Bad Stuff, Dumb Security, WTF, cyber crime, news |
Another survey and some more frightening statistics as reported in CW and affiliated sites. Luckily the company that undertook the survey has the solution; “Protection against all Internet threats“. (Hey, their words, not mine!)
Does anyone have a link to the survey? 39% sounds pretty high but I have no context from the articles.
Secondly, AVG seems to have joined Symantec with the magic solution. Amazing that we allow companies to get away with such advertising! Related post on mis-leading and false advertising.
June 10th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
*sigh*
avg, you used to be cool.
yeah 39% is high. but i suspect they’re trying to call ‘infection’ as high. you’re computer may be infected, but if the virus/bot didn’t steal anything from you [other then bandwidth] you’re not really a victim. at most you’re just a drone in a botnet.
anyway, avg need to be beat-down due to that claim. speaks again to what you were saying about not having a face to a company makes them able to have a claim like that.
perhaps a plan would be to find the name of the ceo/whatever and make a direct ‘hall of shame’ entry about him [and the company as a second entity] making a claim like that.
borb hall of shame?
June 11th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Interesting
June 12th, 2008 at 9:24 am
The ACCC has taken google to court about misleading advertising in regards to their allowed practices in sponsored searching.
They also have taken Telstra to court for misleading and deceptive advertising in regards to the advertised coverage of their 3G network.
I wonder what their position in regards to IT Security Product Advertising is, with respect to misleading and deceptive advertising coupled with uncompetitive practices of some of the larger players in the industry.
I suppose getting onto their radar would just be a matter of receiving the complaints.
June 12th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
@SGIRL, the ACCC is pretty clear about this with definitions in the Trade Practices Act, (along with “Fair Tradings” role). I assume no one has complained because most certainly would fall into categories deemed worth some investigation. Maybe we take Silky’s idea further and submit them all in one lump to the ACCC. Wouldn’t that get some attention to the industry!
June 14th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
@Silky, I am assuming that is the case (re: infection) but then you would expect upwards of 80%?
re: BorB hall of shame. It has merit. We’ve have to word it differently I suppose to avoid some form of legal BS even though we’re probably close to the mark. Maybe something like: “Magical Security Solutions” page? Will add this to the to-do list. I know some will see it as a laugh but it has serious messages also. We get fed far too much crap from some vendors and some in the press.
Running a Security business myself, I am open game also so if people see me posting crap or making similar claims (albeit they would be unintentional and out of context), I’d expect to be pulled up also.
@SGIRL and Secman1, totally spot on. I alluded to this in a previous post and/or responses. Having read through the relevant sections of the Trade Practices Act, the definitions are pretty clear and it is a wonder that these guys are not being pulled up for it. Maybe when stuff like this starts to happen, some of these guys may start being more realistic with their advertising and hopefully developing better software.
Is this a potential lead into overall more secure software from everyone? ie; approaching liability from the advertising perspective and having the likes of an ACCC going at them? At present, software makers enjoy an easy ride in terms of liability that other industries do not!