Internet Safety

Armenia may boast one of the world's strongest fatal attractions to dangerous online locations, according to one recent Russian assessment.

Kaspersky Lab, a Russia-based anti-virus software producer, ranked Armenia third in terms of visits to malware-containing sites, after the United States and Oman. The company, which boasts some 300 million self-reported users for its software, claimed that that most of its users wander into unsafe online quarters after following links suggested by websites with adult content.

In its Worldwide Threat Assessment report, Microsoft, though, did not echo that finding. Armenia did not fall into its top-ten list, although Armenia's rival, Turkey, ranked in the number-ten spot. The US led the list.

But, earlier on, Armenia also appeared as an outstanding achiever on a related ranking compiled by AVG Technologies, an American anti-virus software manufacturer. The company named Armenia as the third most dangerous place to log onto the Internet, after Turkey and Russia. On this list, Armenia is followed by neighbor and sworn enemy Azerbaijan.   

It turns out that Armenia and Azerbaijan are some of the most risky places in the world to surf the World Wide Web.

The computer security software manufacturer AVG Technologies recently conducted a study of country-by-country rates for virus and malware attacks. It based its findings on data collected by AVG protection software from 127 million computers around the globe.

Internet users in Turkey, Russia and the South Caucasus “show disproportionately higher rates of attacks than the global average of 1 to 73,” the study found. Turkey had a rate of one attack per 10 internet users, followed by Russia with a 1-to-15 ratio. Armenia and Azerbaijan had rates of 1-in-24 and 1-in-39 computers respectively.

The risks may stem from the tendency to access semi-legal or illegal download sites, the popularity of internet cafes and the easy sharing of links and files online, AVG researchers noted.