PC-Welt, 16 July 2002  (translated from German)

Most users surf without protection against unwanted dialers

More than 85 percent of computers do not have any protection against dangerous dialers. This is the result of a survey carried out by Nutzwerk security specialists on their website. Visitors of the Nutzwerk website and the service sites dialerhilfe.de and computerbetrug.de could get a free check for security gaps in their browser and mail program.

The biggest security gap was the automatic installation of dangerous dialers via signed ActiveX controls. More than 85 percent of the users leave the default settings in the Internet Explorer untouched.

"Due to this fact it is easily possible to install a dialer by means of a normal mail with embedded HTML code, because the security settings of the Internet Explorer also apply to MS Outlook", says René Holzer, CEO of Nutzwerk.

Another alarming state of affairs is the protection against viruses and Trojans. More than 70 percent of the users do not have adequate protection installed on their computers. And as many users are unprotected against so-called exploits, which are security gaps of the browser.

"Especially unsuspecting users frequently fall victim to unwanted dialers. The installation, configuration and updates of dialer alerts is simply too much for them", says Heiko Rittelmeier, the provider of the online services against computer fraud dialerhilfe.de and computerbetrug.de. Rittelmeier warns: "The protection must set in before a dialer is loaded." He refers to a current AOL survey that showed that 45 percent of the users do not have the technical knowledge to protect themselves effectively.

Every visitor who carries out the security test and sends back his feedback to Nutzwerk, can use the SaferSurf security service 2 months for free.