With summer just around the corner, people are looking for quick diet solutions online to get their bodies ‘beach ready'. A third of Brits (34 percent) are willing to sacrifice their online safety to lose a few pounds by clicking on potentially malicious websites that offer to help ‘lose belly fat'.
Intel Security has researched the diets and fitness practices of 1,000 Brits and discovered that 25 percent admit to buying a service or product from a promotional link without knowing whether or not the site is secure. Only 65 percent of Brits know how to check if a website is secure.
Promotional sites that offer to help consumers lose weight are the number one site that Brits admit they would click on to help achieve their weight loss goals. These weight loss sites are followed by ‘get cashback' and ‘get-rich-quick' offers. After clicking through to a promotional site, 58 percent assume or wouldn't know that a site was genuine.
Not only women seek a great summer body. Both sexes are vulnerable to malware lurking behind many dieting ads, with 61 percent of men clicking on them compared to 52 percent of women.
“Diet and fitness is probably the last thing one would associate with cyber-criminal activity,” says Nick Viney, VP of consumer at Intel Security. “Yet the reality is that cyber-criminals are becoming increasingly savvy when it comes to understanding the consumer mind-set and with, their online search habits. As such it is increasingly important people understand safe online searching behaviour and how to identify potentially risky sites and emails.”
