Mideast Internet growth highest at 920 per cent

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The growing global Internet population was increasingly making the web information highway a threat delivery vehicle, particularly in the Middle East where the Internet growth was four times faster than the global pace.

Middle East Internet growth between 2000 and 2007 was the highest in the world at 920.2 per cent when compared to world average growth rate of 265.6 per cent.

"Human behaviour is the single greatest contributor to the evolution of Internet threats and criminals know how to exploit this opportunity for them," said David Perry, Global Director, Education, Trend Micro, a global leader in Internet content security, at the inaugural of a Pan Middle East Security tour here yesterday.

The major emerging Internet threat to the global Internet users was the Botnet, a large number of compromised PCs controlled by an unauthorised entity for malicious purposes.

He said Botnets were responsible for more than 80 per cent of the world's spam and generated click fraud in excess of $1 billion annually.

"Botnets are the threats to watch, and the Gulf States are not immune from these latest web threats," he maintained.

"Ignorance, arrogance, curiosity, lack of awareness and just plain human nature, can lead Internet users to put themselves at risk.  At best they might realise the issue, but by then the damage is done.
 
It's too late. Often, they don't even know their systems have been compromised," he pointed out.

He said IT users, whether in a professional or consumer capacity, should always follow responsible, best-practice Internet usage policy to protect themselves from existing and emerging web threats.

The advent of the Internet had introduced social, cultural and economic benefits never before experienced by mankind, but it also raised several serious concerns like Internet crime, which was at an all time high.

© Bahrain Tribune 2008