Over 50% of adults don’t know how to protect themselves from cybercrime: survey

The findings come in the backdrop of 59% of adults in India becoming victims of cybercrime in the past 12 months.

About 52% of adults admitted that they do not know how to protect themselves from cybercrime, according to a survey conducted by online security solutions provider NortonLifeLock

The findings come in the backdrop of 59% of adults in India becoming victims of cybercrime in the past 12 months.

The ‘2021 Norton Cyber Safety Insights Report,’ based on the research conducted online by The Harris Poll among 10,030 adults in 10 countries, including 1,000 adults in India, also found that cybercrime victims collectively spent 1.3 billion hours trying to resolve these issues.

“In a year of lockdowns and restrictions, cybercriminals have not been deterred,” said Ritesh Chopra, director sales and field marketing, India & SAARC Countries.

“More Indian adults fell victim to identity theft in the past 12 months and most are concerned about data privacy.”

He added that while the report suggested that many Indian consumers (90%) were taking proactive steps to safeguard their data, 2 in 5 still felt it was impossible to protect their privacy (42%) in this age or say they don’t know how to do so (42%).

As per the research 7 in 10 Indian adults (70%) believe that remote work has made it much easier for hackers and cybercriminals to take advantage of people.

About two-thirds (66%) said that they were more worried than ever before of being a victim of a cybercrime. Similarly, 63% of Indian adults responded that they feel more vulnerable to cybercrime than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

“Despite these vulnerabilities around half (52%) say they do not know how to protect themselves from cybercrime, and even more (68%) say it is difficult for them to determine if the information they see online is from a credible source,” it added.

Over 2 in 5 Indian consumers (45%) have experienced identity theft, with 14% impacted in the past year alone (up from 10% in 2019), which means over 27 million Indian adults experienced identity theft in the past 12 months, the company said.

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