Australian PC Home Users Have a 24% Chance of Encountering Cyber Threats

Avast Global Risk Report shows that Victoria, New South Wales, and Australian Capital Territory are the states where users have more risk of encountering any type of threat

According to Avast’s latest Global PC Risk Report, in Australia, the likelihood of a home user encountering any type of PC malware is 25%. Compared to the global average, Australia home users have a slightly lower risk of encountering all types of threats, but have a higher risk compared to home users in the United Kingdom (23%), the United States (23%), Germany (23%) and Switzerland (23%).

“The risk ratio has increased worldwide for all malware attacks, and we can see that Australia is no exception. In the pandemic, the internet has been kind of a ‘life saver’ for many, empowering them to stay connected with loved ones during the lockdown, to attend virtual workout sessions, get togethers, classes, and work remotely. But cybercriminals have also taken notice of this, and so we have seen a variety of tailored campaigns taking advantage of increased online activities, such as COVID-19 related attacks, sextortion campaigns, spyware, and ransomware,” commented Michal Salat, Director of Threat Intelligence at Avast.

The report also looks into the possibility of users facing ‘advanced’ threats, which Avast defines as more sophisticated or threats never seen before, designed to bypass common protection technologies included in security software, such as signatures, heuristics, emulators, URL filtering, and email scanning. For this type of threat, Australian home users have a 3% risk ratio, which is lower than the global average of 5%, but slightly higher than France (2%), New Zealand (3%) and the United Kingdom (3%).

Here is a breakdown of Australian home users most at risk of encountering threats:

The Global Scenario

Home users around the world have a 29.39% chance of encountering any type of PC malware, which represents an increase of around 5% compared to the previous year. The chances of users being targeted by an advanced threat are lower, but the proportion is similar to all threats, with consumers having a 5% chance of encountering an advanced threat (4.61% in the previous year).

Geographies with more conflictive socio-political situations, such as the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, seem to be facing more risk in the online world as well.

The top 10 countries in which home users are most at risk of encountering threats are:

This report provides an overview of cyberattacks that happened within thirty days, giving a picture in time of the general risk users and businesses face globally and in different countries.

Avast’s Global PC Risk Report provides a snapshot of H1 2021 cyber attacks looking at data from March 16, 2021 to April 14, 2021.