Despite the numerous cybersecurity threats and attacks this pandemic, only 31 percent of Americans showed concern over data security, according to a report from Unisys Security.
Concerns about Internet hacking, security, and computer viruses, has dropped since 2019, dubbed as the lowest in the survey. Unisys Security found that the biggest concerns of Americans are personal safety, with a reported increase of 58 percent.
The report is conducted since the start of the pandemic, measuring concerns over Americans’ health, safety, and economic stability. It calculates a score out of 300, to determine a consumer’s attitude towards four major categories: national, financial, Internet, and personal security.
While the four categories remained at a higher index of 175, Internet safety doesn’t concern consumers much. The results aligned consumers’ response to concerns over being scammed. About 70 percent of the respondents said they aren’t scared of being scammed.
Only less than 24 percent of the respondents claimed they are less likely to report data breach during the pandemic. Meanwhile, only 45 percent answered they are concerned about the risks of being scammed during the health crisis.
Unisys chief security officer Mat Newfield said, “It’s not surprising to see people’s level of concern for their personal safety jump in light of the global health crisis.”
Newfield added, “However, the fact that it is not only matched by but exceeded by, a drop in concerns around hacking, scamming or online fraud reflects a false sense of consumer security.”
Massive Increase in Online Crimes
The findings of Unisys Security are considered alarming by security experts as online crimes increased massively. In fact, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), crimes reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center increased by 400 percent because of the health crisis.
The reports are not limited to email phishing and hacking, in addition to lost credentials. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also found more than 52,000 cases of reported fraud related to the pandemic, starting in January 2020.
Other eight areas that Unisys Security measures include bank card fraud, financial obligations, virus/hacking, online transactions, identity theft, personal safety, national security, and disaster/epidemic.
With only a few percentages of the respondents show concerns over Internet security, security experts said these results pose problems. Given the work-from-home setup, hackers can easily crawl in social engineering methods like phishing, to hack systems and to get user credentials.
