Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Cybercrime Victims Beset With Guilt, Blame Themselves

by Terrence O'Brien on September 9, 2010 at 11:15 AM

frustrated at the laptopVictims of cybercrimes are often quite angry about being hacked and snookered. That's not surprising. What might come as a bit of a shock is that most aggrieved blame themselves. According to a survey from Symantec, 54-percent of those who had fallen prey to Internet scams and attacks said they should have been "more careful," while 12-percent said the security breach was entirely their own fault.

Computer World posits that this is largely due to users being unsure of how to protect themselves. We think the guilt stems from knowing the rules for safe browsing and carelessly flaunting them (or making careless, idiotic decisions that you should probably feel bad about later). Even we are guilty of doing it; a friend posts a link on Facebook, and, rather than stop to check out the legitimacy of the target site, we blindly click through to see the video of cute cats [Ed. Note: How can we resist?!]. Staying safe on the Web requires constant vigilance, which quickly gets tiring. We're all guilty of getting lazy now and then, it's just that some of us get caught when we let down our guard. And, when we are found to be doing something we know we shouldn't, the natural reaction is to feel guilt. By now, you should know the drill: keep your OS and malware protection up to date, run regular scans, and, by default, don't trust anything or anyone online.

Tags: cybercrime, guilt, hacking, internet safety, InternetSafety, scam, survey, symantec, top, web

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular