When asked how concerned they are about their online privacy and data security, Germans (77%) and Malaysians (73%) expressed the most concern, while the Swedes (42%) and Finns (36%) appear to be the least concerned - or the most confident about their online life.
The survey, which took in responses from 1450 adults in seven countries, found that 49% of respondents said they had been hit by malware in the past 12 months, but their security software had notified them and prevented an infection.
The most malware hits were reported by Poland (70%), Finland (60%) and Malaysia (54%), with Germany (32%) reporting the lowest figure.
Poland (14%) and Malaysia (11%), meanwhile, were found to have the most respondents without any anti-virus protection on their computers which have been infected by malware.
Commenting on the results of the survey, Sean Sullivan, a security advisor at F-Secure, said that Germany seems to combine a high level of worry with a low level of exposure to the actual threats.
Caution is good when surfing the web but being overly concerned may also prevent people from experiencing the full benefits of the web.
"There is also a learning curve – as people become exposed to threats, they also learn how to deal with new situations and become more confident and less concerned", he explained.
According to F-Secure, the survey results also show that many computer users around the world are still unsure about security issues. For example, many people do not know if their computers have been infected in Sweden (38%), US (34%), the UK (33%), and Germany (32%).
There was also a wide variation in how concerned people are about specific types of malware attacks. Germans (65%) and Malaysians (59%) are the most concerned about downloading malware from a website, compared to just 22% of respondents in Finland.
The risk of poisoned search results, which criminals use to lead people to malicious websites, is taken most seriously by the Germans (62%) and the British (41%).
Drilling down into the survey results shows that an average of 7% of respondents in the seven countries do not know what malicious code or malware is, with the highest scores occurring in the UK (12%), the US (12%) and Malaysia (9%).
Interestingly, a significant proportion of Americans (29%) and the Brits (28%) were also not aware what poisoned search results are.