"Cybercrime Awareness Heightened, Yet People Still Engage in Risky Online Behaviors"
Researchers at Aura recently conducted a new survey of 2,000 U.S. adults. They found that 76% of Americans recognize that data breaches are serious, showing a high awareness that may be driven by news of significant consumer, enterprise, and infrastructure breaches over the past year alone. The researchers also found that Americans are torn on whether things will improve by 2030. Almost half of the respondents (45%) expect to feel more secure online in 2030 compared to today, either due to fewer cybercriminals (11%) or more products/solutions to combat them (34%). However, many people believe they will feel about the same (26%) or even less secure (22%) in 2030 than they feel online today. The researchers stated that although awareness of cybercrime has clearly heightened, there’s a correlation between adults who are engaging in risky online behaviors and those who have experienced digital crime. The survey found that about 1 in 2 Americans who have experienced digital crime have opened emails from unknown senders (51%) and have downloaded software/files from unknown origins (50%). Of those who experienced digital crime, 74% of them used the same passwords across multiple accounts. During the survey, 80% of the respondents believed that the U.S. government has an obligation to protect consumers’ personal information. Even more of the participants believe the protection of personal data and information should be a right that everyone is given for free (84%), and 83% believe that data protection should be provided, for free, by schools and employers.