THE compromise of the security of account bothers the majority of people online, Kaspersky Lab ZAO said.
In a survey, 70 percent of respondents were found to have awareness of the fact that their account was hackable and were anxious about that possibility, the cyber-security firm said in a statement on February 21.
“Account security worries Internet users more than any other areas of their online lives,” Kaspersky Lab said. “This is the highest ranking of all cyber threats.”
Fewer by just a thin feather, some 69 percent were also worried of breaches capable of stealing their passwords, while 65 percent were disturbed by threats that could compromise their financial information, the Russian firm said.
Internet users were also found to have more concern for password than their photos and videos.
“When asked about the type of data that could be accessed by cyber criminals, users are also most concerned about their passwords [50 percent],” Kaspersky Lab said. “Even private photos and videos are less important, with only 24 percent of respondents worried about these.”
The same survey revealed that the accounts of 18 percent of respondents encountered hacking threat in a year.
“Importantly, according to the victims themselves, accounts were most often hacked by simply guessing the password [40 percent of cases],” Kaspersky Lab said. “This comes as no surprise, however, if you consider how many users today neglect to create strong passwords and fail to store them securely.”
Kaspersky Lab Head of Consumer Product Management Elena Kharchenko was quoted in a statement as saying most Internet users keep as many accounts as they can. These accounts involve electronic mail, social networking, banking, gaming, messaging and other platforms. “It’s hard to create and memorize a strong password for each account,” she said. “However, there are apps designed for such situations: they can generate strong passwords that are different for different services, store them securely, synchronize them on various devices and automatically enter them in forms on web sites.”
A single master password is all one needs to remember instead of several other passwords, Kharchenko noted. Kaspersky Lab disclosed the findings of the survey as it announced its new Password Manager, a solution to account security threats. “In addition to standard features, its updated version can import passwords from other similar solutions, generate strong passwords on PCs and Macs and automatically check passwords entered by users to determine whether they are secure,” the firm said.
