Kaspersky Lab Asks Consumers: 'Are You Cyber Savvy?'

Woburn, MA – September 22, 2015 - Consumers’ online habits can help protect their digital identity, money and personal data - or it could put them at risk. Kaspersky Lab has conducted a test to evaluate consumers’ level of intuition when it comes to their Internet habits. The company is also encouraging people everywhere to take the quiz and find out just how cyber savvy you are online.  

Kaspersky Lab conducted a survey of 18,000 people worldwide, over 18 years of age. The participants were asked to consider several potentially dangerous situations, which often occur on the Internet while they are web surfing, downloading files or using social networks (in total there were eight scenarios).

The results showed that consumers often do not recognize a potential online threat when they encounter one. Respondents earned an average score of 95 points out of a possible 150, meaning they chose the safe options in about half of the hypothetical situations. The test also revealed some interesting statistics, including the following:

• Only 24% of respondents were able to identify a genuine web page without also selecting a phishing (i.e. fake) page.
• While choosing a password for a new account, only 38% of respondents thought of a new and more complicated combination.
• Another 19% would disable a security solution if it tried to prevent them from installing a program.

Although, there was evidence from the report that some consumers were cyber savvy: when asked to select what they would do if they received an email from the ‘tax office’ with the attached Microsoft Word document “Information about your unpaid fines," 89 percent of respondents made the right decision to remove the email or check the attached file with the help of a protection product.

"Self-preservation is an integral part of our existence. In the real world we know how to reduce" the risk of money or property loss: we’ve learned about it from an early age. When we’re offline we’re always on guard, but when it comes to the Internet the self-preservation instinct often fails us. And, of course, today everything has a digital format: our personal life, intellectual property and money. All this requires that we adopt the same kind of responsibility from the user as in real life, and the cost of making a mistake online can be just as high. That’s why we encourage everyone to evolve with technology and improve their cyber savviness," warns David Emm, Principal Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

To find out just how cyber savvy you are, visit https://blog.kaspersky.com/cyber-savvy-quiz/

You can scan your device for malware or vulnerabilities with the help of Kaspersky Lab’s free tools available at http://free.kaspersky.com.

Advice on safe online behavior is available at https://blog.kaspersky.com/tag/cybersavvy.

About Kaspersky Lab

Kaspersky Lab is one of the world’s fastest-growing cybersecurity companies and the largest that is privately owned. The company is ranked among the world’s top four vendors of security solutions for endpoint users (IDC, 2014). Since 1997 Kaspersky Lab has been an innovator in cybersecurity and provides effective digital security solutions and threat intelligence for large enterprises, SMBs and consumers. Kaspersky Lab is an international company, operating in almost 200 countries and territories across the globe, providing protection for over 400 million users worldwide.

Learn more atwww.kaspersky.com

Media contact:
Sarah Kitsos
sarah.kitsos@kaspersky.com
781-503-2615