Majority are Naïve to Cybersecurity Risks and Uninformed About Online Safety
Blumberg Capital released findings that reveal 60 percent of Americans believe they have never been a victim of cyber hacking or are unaware if they have. In fact, statistics reveal nearly the opposite is true. Every day, more than a million people become a victim of cybercrime. In fact, in the U.S. alone, $15 billion was stolen from 13.1 million American consumers in 2015, prompting the question of why are Americans so overconfident about their cybersecurity knowledge?
A large majority of Americans rate their knowledge of cybersecurity equal to or higher than the likes of Donald Trump (63 percent), Hillary Clinton (62 percent), their employer's IT departments (57 percent), former FBI director James Comey (44 percent) and former CIA director John Brennan (42 percent). Yet nearly half (45 percent) of people admitted to not being able to recognize a cyber crime unless contacted by a vendor or law enforcement authorities. The Blumberg Capital 2017 State of Cybersecurity survey, conducted in association with Researchscape, reveals the overconfidence and disconnect between American consumers' cybersecurity knowledge and concerns with reality.