Published on the 23/06/2016 | Written by Beverley Head
IT’s warnings about the need for greater vigilance about computer security is paying off – but Australian and New Zealand consumers are still playing fast and loose with their own protection…
A survey of more than 1,300 online users across Australia and New Zealand, intended to test the ‘cyber-saviness’ of local IT users, has identified a security gap between what people do at work and what they do at home.
While 48 percent of respondents said when using a personal device at home they would make purchases and allow websites to store credit card details for convenience; just 13 percent of people would do that in a work setting. Conducted on behalf of security firm ESET the survey also found that 20 percent of consumers were also willing to store credit card details on mobile apps.
When it comes to passwords 35 percent of consumers create passwords based on a favourite word, phrase, name or personal details compared to 18 percent in the work setting.
Nick FitzGerald, Senior Research Fellow at ESET, warned; “Weak cybersecurity behaviours on personal devices can lead to ease of identity theft, ransomware attacks, phishing, and more. Seemingly small things, like your passwords, could be the gateway hackers and e-criminals are looking for.
“Keep your passwords long, complex, and different on every site. This can make them difficult to remember, and even more difficult if you follow the typical advice that you change them regularly.”
In terms of public wi-fi, the survey revealed that 49 percent of personal consumers would use such networks when available, as would 26 percent of people looking for connection to work.
Norton by Symantec agrees that there is too much reliance on public wi-fi, citing statistics that show more than 4.3 million Australians use public wi-fi hotspots.
But it warns that while public wi-fii is convenient, it’s never safe and can expose information such as passwords, photos and credit card numbers to hackers and identity thieves. The company will next week launch a product to encrypt information being passed through public wi-fi.
While the issue of computer security never goes away, IBM’s most recent survey of the costs of data breaches, conducted in association with the Ponemon Institute revealed that in a survey of 12 countries, Australia was the only nation where the average cost of a data breach fell in the last 12 months.
The report indicated a 6.6 percent drop in the cost of the average data breach in Australia (down to US$2.44 million) while globally the average cost of a data breach reached US$4 million – up from US$3.79 million a year ago.
However IBM’s ANZ security business unit executive Glen Gooding, warned the drop did not indicate the beginning of a long term decline in attacks, rather that Australian enterprise had got a little better in terms of its response.
