According to a study just released by security company AVG, Internet users in Russia and Turkey have the greatest chance of being attacked by viruses, with the average chance of a web surfer falling prey to an attack being at one in 10 and and one in 15, respectively.

The security company looked at virus vulnerability in 100+ million PCs in 144 countries during the last week of July of this year. The United States (with one user in 48 being attacked) came in 9th place, the United Kingdom came in 30th with one in 63, Australia was 36th with one in 75 users being at risk.

Japan lead at the other of the spectrum with a one out of 404 attack ratio, the safest of all countries studied.

Most likely, Japan takes high billing in terms of web surfing safety because of a high proportion of Internet users in the general population (78.2%), coupled with widespread broadband access.

According to the study, users in the high risk Caucasus region (Turkey, Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) were hands down more vulnerable to attack, most likely because of higher frequency of accessing illegal download sites, as well as the continuing popularity of Internet cafes.

Remember Internet cafes?

Image: AVG

Russia, Turkey Top List Of Riskiest Places To Surf The Web

Companies do all kinds of studies all the time for all sorts of reasons. Seeing as the iPad is currently one of the hottest devices on the market, it should be no surprise that companies want to know about how users are using it. Even if that company is Microsoft.

Yes, Apple’s rival has created a Facebook event calling for iPad owners to come to Microsoft’s Redmond campus between July 16 and July 21 for a study. Specifically, it’s Microsoft’s User Research group and they want people for chunks of two hours to apparently survey how they use the device. A follow-up note indicates that it’s student iPad users that Microsoft is specifically interested in here.

So what do they want to study about the iPad? Who knows. ZunePad? But as one commenter on the Facebook posting notes, “This gonna be a hard study, since most of the people who bought ipad are apple fanboys and apple regular customers their point of view is, um, damaged.”

Or maybe this is the secret to Microsoft’s second inception.

A “Microsoft gratuity item” is being offered in exchange for participating. Oh goody. Here’s to hoping it’s a Courier.

Here’s the description:

Microsoft User Research is looking for iPad owners for an upcoming study to get feedback. This study will be two hours long and will take place on the Microsoft Redmond campus with a number of dates and times between Friday, July 16th and Wednesday, July 21st.

In appreciation for your time, each participant will be offered a Microsoft gratuity item.

If you are interested, please respond to the questions below to uccoord@microsoft.com with the subject line “iPad”:

• Name/Age
• Phone Number
• Job Title/Company
• Are you employed full time?
-OR-
• Are you a student?
• Do you own an iPad?

Microsoft Looking For A Few Good iPad Users… To Study