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Kaspersky study finds consumers nonchalant about data security

When it comes to protecting their personal and financial information online, consumers just might be their own worst enemy.

August 18, 2014

Only a small number of people understand the risks associated with active use of social networks. This is the conclusion that can be drawn from the Consumer Security Risks Survey for 2014, a study commissioned by Kaspersky Lab conducted by B2B International.

One very large part of the problem: Seventy-eight percent of the respondents do not think they are of interest to cybercriminals or are unsure about this issue.

The survey found that communication via social networks is the third most popular activities on the Internet, after checking email and reading articles or books. On mobile devices it was even more popular, ranking second.

People often are careless with information they share over social media networks, the study found. While 10 percent of participants said they discuss private information on social media networks with strangers, only 18 percent think they reveal more personal information than they should on social networks. However, 15 percent admitted that they share information online that they would not disclose in the real life.

Theft of their social media network credentials is not a top concern for many, as only 7 percent of respondents included it in their list of top three types of information they would not want to have stolen.

However, information such as an email address can be used to help an attacker break an account password or identify a person’s location. In turn, access to a user’s account can give cybercriminals the opportunity to send malicious links and files to the victim’s friends, stealing their personal data as well.

Survey statistics also showed that 40 percent of respondents received suspicious emails or social media messages with unknown links or potentially malicious files, and 21 percent received emails claiming to be from a social media network asking for password and other personal credentials.

Kaspersky Lab said in the release that they had blocked more than 600 million attempts to visit a phishing page and that more 35 percent of these sites imitated social networking sites.

In addition, mobile users also find themselves at risk. Six percent of all respondents said their social network accounts had been "taken over" by hackers; among the owners of Android-based tablets this figure reached 13 percent.

The number of victims also varies depending on location: Unauthorized access to social network accounts was reported by 16 percent of the users in China and the Asia-Pacific region, 19 percent in Russia and 4 percent of North American respondents.

The Consumer Security Risks Survey study was conducted online from May to June, and included 11,135 respondents in 23 countries.