June 8, 2018 By David Bisson 2 min read

According to a new report, 11 percent of consumers living in the U.S. fell victims to identity theft over the past year.

By comparison, more than four-fifths (81 percent) of consumers said their identities were safe, while 8 percent admitted they didn’t know.

The results of the survey suggest a need for users to adopt basic security best practices, such as avoiding public Wi-Fi, investing in antivirus software and exercising caution when confronted with suspicious content online.

Consumer Carelessness Leads to Identity Theft

For the study, titled “The Cyber Hygiene Index: Measuring the Riskiest States,” security firm Webroot commissioned the Ponemon Institute to survey 4,290 U.S. consumers about their level of digital security readiness. Their responses revealed that consumers aren’t doing all they can to strengthen their digital security.

For instance, a quarter of respondents said that a confirmed identity theft incident had minimal to no impact on their level of caution when accessing the web and sharing personal data. Reflecting this fact, 14 percent of respondents didn’t change their behavior following the event. However, 54 percent of consumers did change their passwords and 37 percent enrolled with a credit monitoring provider (37 percent) after an identity theft incident.

Despite this, the survey revealed that 54 percent of consumers don’t use identity protection services. This is problematic given that 21 percent of respondents reported suffering more than 10 malware infections and 23 percent said they received more than 20 phishing emails over a 12-month period.

The Insecure States of America

The authors of the report used consumers’ responses and their places of residence to build a list of the riskiest states in the U.S. Florida earned the top spot, followed by Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico and Illinois. By comparison, the report ranked New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Utah, Rhode Island and Minnesota as the least risky states.

David Dufour, vice president of engineering and cybersecurity at Webroot, said the list of risky states points to deficiencies concerning how Americans approach their digital security overall.

“Regardless of the region, the riskiest states index shows that many people in the U.S. are jeopardizing their safety with inadequate cybersecurity practices,” Dufour said. “To help fight widespread threats like ransomware and phishing attacks, internet users should run a security solution on their personal devices and make sure that all security and other software applications are up to date.”

More from

FYSA – Adobe Cold Fusion Path Traversal Vulnerability

2 min read - Summary Adobe has released a security bulletin (APSB24-107) addressing an arbitrary file system read vulnerability in ColdFusion, a web application server. The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2024-53961, can be exploited to read arbitrary files on the system, potentially leading to unauthorized access and data exposure. Threat Topography Threat Type: Arbitrary File System Read Industries Impacted: Technology, Software, and Web Development Geolocation: Global Environment Impact: Web servers running ColdFusion 2021 and 2023 are vulnerable Overview X-Force Incident Command is monitoring the disclosure…

2024 trends: Were they accurate?

4 min read - The new year always kicks off with a flood of prediction articles; then, 12 months later, our newsfeed is filled with wrap-up articles. But we are often left to wonder if experts got it right in January about how the year would unfold. As we close out 2024, let’s take a moment to go back and see if the crystal balls were working about how the year would play out in cybersecurity.Here are five trends that were often predicted for…

Ransomware attack on Rhode Island health system exposes data of hundreds of thousands

3 min read - Rhode Island is grappling with the fallout of a significant ransomware attack that has compromised the personal information of hundreds of thousands of residents enrolled in the state’s health and social services programs. Officials confirmed the attack on the RIBridges system—the state’s central platform for benefits like Medicaid and SNAP—after hackers infiltrated the system on December 5, planting malicious software and threatening to release sensitive data unless a ransom is paid. Governor Dan McKee, addressing the media, called the attack…

Topic updates

Get email updates and stay ahead of the latest threats to the security landscape, thought leadership and research.
Subscribe today