Bot awareness is high; however, so is user naiveté

86% of more than 3700 respondents were aware of the concept behind a bot.

More than 80 percent of the keyboard jockeys on two continents know what bot networks do. They just don’t know what they’re called.

In its 2010 annual report on email security and awareness, the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) discovered that 84 percent of computer users is six countries–United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany and Spain–were familiar with the “concept” of a bot. That is, the idea that malware existed that could control a computer without its owner’s knowledge and use the machine to proliferate spam and steal personal information.

However, 53 percent of the same sample of some 3700 respondents confessed that they’d never heard of the term “bot” or “botnet.” Another 25 percent had heard of the terms but didn’t know what they meant.

Users least likely to have heard of bots were women (38 percent), people 55 or older (36 percent) and users inexperienced with Internet security (22 percent).

The greatest awareness of the bot concept was found in Germany (91 percent). In the United States, 82 percent of the respondents had knowledge of bots. That’s five percent higher than it was in last year’s survey.

When it comes to viruses that cause bot infections, users appear to be in a state of denial, according to the data gathered by the surveyors. For instance, even among users who had previous encounters with malicious software, 43 percent of them revealed that they didn’t expect to be infected by a bot. German computerists were the most confident that they were immune from bots (62 percent). British (26 percent) and Spanish (23 percent) respondents were the least confident nationalities about bot infections.

Past dealings with spam appear to have no influence on a user’s attitude toward bot infections. Almost half of those who opened spam messages in the past believed they weren’t susceptible to bot infections in the future. A similar number, 46 percent, of respondents who avoid opening junk mail felt immune from bot infections.

Should a bot infect their computer how will an email user know it? Some 66 percent of them told the surveyors that they expect their anti-virus software to alert them to it. Computerists 55 and older, who, according to the report, are more likely to keep their anti-virus software up to date, were more likely to depend on anti-virus alerts (70 percent) than those under 35 (63 percent).

Other tip offs cited by users were abnormal or sluggish computer performance (52 percent) and identification of a program they didn’t install (52 percent).

For fighting bots, email users tend to look to their service providers for protection (65 percent) or the anti-virus software companies (54 percent). More users aged 55 and older (77 percent) were inclined to hold service providers accountable for stopping the spread of viruses, fraudulent email, spyware and spam than 18-34 year olds (57 percent) and the 35-54 age group (67 percent). The same was true for holding the feet of AV companies to the fire on the issue–55-plus, 62 percent; 18-34, 52 percent; 35-54, 54 percent.

Only 48 percent of the respondents felt they were accountable for fighting viruses and spam. That was slightly higher for 55-plus respondents (51 percent) and lower for 18-24 year olds (45 percent). Although they didn’t embrace a primary role in battling malware, a majority of the respondents (56 percent) rated themselves as being very or fairly good at stopping virus and spam.

They also let other stakeholders in the email ecosystem off the hook for combating malware. Only 37 percent held software companies accountable; 35 percent, government and consumer protection agencies; 22 percent, social networking sites; 20 percent, computer manufacturers; 19 percent, computer and software retailers; 15 percent, consumer advocacy groups; and 12 percent, professional associations.

Once infected, users are most likely to try and address the problem themselves. Following the do-it-yourself approach (36 percent) was have a friend or family member help with the repair (32 percent) and take it to a repair shop (31 percent). It’s interesting how those numbers vary by region. For example, respondents in Canada (43 percent) and Spain (42 percent) preferred taking their computer to a repair center above other choices. In the United States, survey members were closely divided between a repair center (35 percent) and self-repair (34 percent). Germany (44 percent) and U.K. (36 percent) respondents strongly endorsed self-repair; France (42 percent), friends and family.