More than Sixty-three percent of people believe that it is acceptable for their government to spy on another country's computer systems. Sophos’s mid-year 2010 Security Threat Report said it was perfectly acceptable to float malware into another nations' computers with 23 percent claiming to support this action even during peace time.

One in 14 respondents to the survey claimed to believe that crippling denial of service (DDoS) attacks against another country’s communication or financial websites – like the one used to target Russian banks earlier this year – are acceptable during peace time. Just half said such an attack was only acceptable when two countries were at war. 44 percent said it was never acceptable.

Media friendly Sophos spokesman Graham Cluley said that there is an attitude of all’s fair in love and war and that there is one rule for your country and another rule for your citizens.

Speaking to Eweek Cluley said that 32 percent of respondents to Sophos’s survey said that countries should also be allowed to plant malware and hack into private foreign companies in order to spy for economic advantage.