The firm, in its research, surveyed 1,200 American Internet users of the age group 18-55 years. These respondents use a minimum of one home PC, have a broadband connection as well as use the Internet for some hours or so a month on their home PC.

Evidently, the data collected shows that 81% of respondents had already discovered malicious software on their computers. Moreover, 29% of the respondents reporting infection stated that it had been a current event. Because of these online attacks, respondents expressed their top concern as identity theft.

Notes Mike Gassewitz chief executive officer of Kindsight that people are increasingly worried about ID theft partly because of the increase in cyber-criminals' sophistication. Tmcnet.com published this in news on August 24, 2010.

The CEO said that the cyber-criminals with their methodical attack plans for churning more revenue had great acumen in spotting potential vulnerabilities on end-users' home PCs. He added that once the criminals obtained end-users' private data, they would raid their bank accounts as well as damage credit ratings that meant significant cost to the users' effort and time for recovering from that damage.

Simultaneously, whilst plainly concerned of potential identity theft involving credit, banking and other personal information, consumers continued to acknowledge that they didn't always implement fundamental measures of security that would have kept them safe from such attacks.

Officials at Kindsight were astonished when they discovered that merely 53% of those surveyed had a firewall deployed as a measure of protection for their home PCs. Not even 60% had their AV programs up to date, they found.

Thus Kindsight recommends Internet users that they must fully install their anti-spyware and anti-virus software as well as keep it updated. What's more, consumers must set up a firewall protection, while ensuring that their plug-ins and computer programs are wholly up to date.