China Most Feared For Privacy Violations

A new survey reveals details about security experts' privacy concerns.

China is the country feared most for privacy violations, a new survey executed by open source security software developer AlienVault has found.

In the survey, which questioned 300 IT security experts at the InfoSec conference in April, 40 per cent of respondents chose China as the country that most worried them about privacy breaches.

Tied for the title of second most feared nations were the Russian and US governments at 13 per cent, with the UK only slightly less fearsome at 12 per cent. Four per cent of respondents believe aliens (ed : any proof they actually exist?) pose a threat to privacy, while five per cent reported that they have no privacy concerns.

However, most respondents said that internal staff are the biggest threat to their data, with 71 per cent of respondents claiming that staff are potentially more dangerous than hackers, the government and other third parties.

The survey also revealed that more than a quarter of companies believe a major security breach could prove to be a life or death matter for their customers.

"We know that if a government site or a national critical infrastructure is hacked it will cost lives, but it's the impact for private companies that is all too often ignored", said AlienVault president and CEO Barmak Meftah in a statement.

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