One in two mobile phone users in India have been victims of mobile theft, a survey of an e security company has revealed.
According to the Norton Mobile Survey 2011, 53 per cent of adults in India have been victims of mobile phone loss or theft, but only two in five have a Password protecting their devices.
Interestingly, the survey finds that more than half the victims were willing to pay a ransom (an average of Rs 3,692) to get their mobile phone back, but they ended up paying three times the amount (Rs 9,957) to resolve the situation.
The Norton survey says that mobile theft victims were concerned about exposure or loss of private information, and that 74 per cent of the victims were unable to lock or wipe the phone’s memory after it was lost or stolen.
The survey also found that 60 per cent users are comfortable with online banking, connecting through Wifi, and having their location identified by software on their mobiles, while 50 per cent access email and shop online.
The survey was conducted in January this year across eight major cities – New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune and Ahmedabad.
Of the five hundred people it polled, 77 per cent owned standard mobile phones while 23 per cent had smartphones.