Dangers lurk all over the world - especially on the Internet.

Product test

"Cybersecurity Insights Report" from Symantec - over 12 million victims of cybercrime

23.12.2016

Translation: machine translated

We are careless - that is the key message of the "Norton Cybersecurity Insights Report" published by Symantec on 16 November 2016. The study sheds light on the consequences of cybercrime and reveals that many users are negligent when it comes to protecting their personal data, despite an increased awareness of the dangers of the internet.

Facts and figures

12.7 million victims of cybercrime
1.5 million US dollars in property damage
On average, the victim had to spend 14.8 hours dealing with the consequences
82% of users are aware of the danger, but are still willing to open links or potentially infected attachments in emails from unknown senders
Affected users do not tend to change their behaviour despite negative experiences

The report is designed for Germany .

Generation Y

Users in the "Generation Y" age group, the millennials born in the digital age, are most frequently affected by online crime. Last year, 26 per cent of them fell victim to cybercriminals. Frequent travellers (27 per cent), parents (26 per cent) and men (21 per cent) were also more likely to be cyberattacked.

Consumers admit that the risks are real

The increase in cybercrime has led to people's perception of digital and real risks becoming mixed. Many consider cyber criminals to be just as dangerous as criminals in the analogue world:

More than half of Germans (59 per cent) say that it is now more difficult to protect themselves in the online world than in the real world .- Almost two thirds (61 per cent) are convinced that it is riskier to exchange confidential data over a public Wi-Fi connection than to read their credit or debit card number out loud in a public place
51 per cent think it is more likely that someone will gain unauthorised access to networked devices in their home than that their home will actually be broken into

Bad habits are hard to break - online and in real life

Living in a connected world brings with it the dangers of cybercrime. Nevertheless, consumers continue to behave carelessly and display risky online habits:

Germans have no problem clicking on links in emails from unknown senders or opening attachments that could potentially be infected
Almost two fifths (39 per cent) cannot recognise a phishing attack and a further 23 per cent cannot distinguish a genuine message from a phishing email. This means that almost six out of ten consumers are at risk from phishing emails
Millennials have surprisingly careless online habits and have no problem sharing passwords, putting their online security at risk (36 per cent). This is probably why they are the most likely victims of cybercrime compared to other age groups: 26 per cent of German millennials were affected by cybercrime last year .- Just under a quarter of consumers (24 per cent) claim to use a secure password for an account if they feel it is necessary. However, one in four (26 per cent) share their passwords with others and many (42 per cent) see no danger in using the same passwords for multiple accounts
36 per cent of users have at least one unprotected device, making their other devices vulnerable to ransomware (blackmail software), infected websites, zero-day attacks and phishing attacks. Just under half (45 per cent) of these users state that they consider the protection of their devices to be superfluous. In their opinion, 32 per cent do not carry out any "risky" activities on the internet that could make them vulnerable to attacks .- Internet users want to be online all the time. Just under a fifth (16 per cent) of Germans are therefore prepared to install third-party software to use a public Wi-Fi network instead of doing without the Internet .

Hackers are constantly developing new methods

Cyber criminals are taking advantage of consumers' careless behaviour and developing ever more sophisticated methods to compromise online accounts .

Two in five people (38 per cent) feel overwhelmed by the amount of information they have to protect. Nevertheless, over half (52 per cent) are convinced that everyone needs to learn how to behave safely online themselves. In view of the increasing online threats, this harbours major risks for consumers
Only a quarter of European respondents believe that they would not recognise a fraudulent email requesting confidential information. However, an experiment conducted as part of the Norton Cybersecurity Insights Report shows a different picture: when trying to distinguish a genuine bank email from a fake one, four out of ten Europeans were wrong and fell for the phishing email. For three quarters of users affected by phishing scams, this had negative consequences, such as compromised accounts or data
In the past twelve months, 700,000 more Germans were affected by cybercrime than in the previous year due to negligence in protecting networked devices, risky online habits and the disclosure of passwords