Are You Scared for Your Digital Life?

In TrendLabs, it has become somewhat a tradition for our researchers to remind readers of the things cybercriminals do to scare them into falling into their traps. After all, not only do they take advantage of this trick-or-treating festivities to send e-cards or poison search results, the malicious tweets, disturbing Facebook posts, and the scareware that are still plaguing users happen all year round. We even did an infographic last year to sum up these tactics.

Today, cybercriminal activities, hackers, and malware are just one aspect of our digital lives that we need to be scared of. So we asked ourselves: what are we really afraid of?

A study* we recently conducted found that while 7 out of 10 users feel that it is their personal responsibility to protect their and their family’s online security, online 4 out of 10 feel they know how to do so. Other fears/concerns that came up touch on relevant issues like privacy and data loss.

Are these fears rooted on something? It turns out that some of our online activities may be a contributing factor after all. Worried about the information posted on your social networking account? You should, if you don’t change your privacy settings. And did you know that according to Mashable, 1 out of 4 people in the U.S. do not back up their data at all?

These interesting findings can be found in our latest infographic. It is interesting to note, too, that our digital “phobias” almost have the same manifestations as real-life ones (athazagoraphobia, anyone?).

*Based on a Trend Micro survey sent to 1,000 respondents in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia