A report from Norton Cybercrime has shown that consumers are not protecting their smartphones.
Norton Cybercrime has released a report that provides insights into the use – and lack thereof – of mobile security protection and behaviors by the people of New Zealand in order to help to improve awareness of the issue.
The report’s release was aligned with the first day of New Zealand Cyber Security Awareness Week.
The awareness week began on May 27, 2013 and pointed out a number of issues regarding the behaviors that people maintain in terms of their mobile security, as well as their online social activities. The insights from the report have indicated that New Zealanders are becoming increasingly dependent on their mobile devices and that nearly one out of every three (30 percent) feel that they could never give them up.
That said, the report also showed that mobile security knowledge and activities are weak in this population.
A full half (50 percent) of the participants in the Norton Cybercrime survey said that they use their smartphones and tablets for internet access. This has caused cybercriminals to turn their attention toward these devices and not exclusively PCs. Among New Zealand adults, 16 percent fell victim to a social or mobile security crime last year.
The Symantec Internet Security Threat Report from 2012 showed that there was a 58 percent increase in smartphone and tablet malware last year. Thirty two percent of these threats to mobile security were geared toward stealing data. Moreover, 41 percent of the people in the country had either lost the smartphones or had them stolen last year. That said, only 9 percent reported that they had taken the step to lock or wipe their devices after they were gone.
Only 45 percent took the basic step of using a password to secure their mobile devices against use by an unauthorized individual. Even though the use of mobile security best practice is quite low in New Zealand, this problem was identified as an issue of awareness, as 63 percent were completely unaware that there are solutions for their devices comparable to those on their PCs.
