Study: Consumers more concerned with financial, not personal, hacks

Researchers polled people in the US, UK and Germany and found that about half of consumers in all three countries are worried about financial hacks. In the US and UK, more than half are concerned about these threats and in Germany about 43% say they are concerned about financial breaches. Of the hacks people are least worried about – hacks to online data sites, web browsing history and criminal history.

“Consumers can no longer afford to put their data at risk,” said Tom Kemp, CEO of Centrify. “To protect themselves and their personal information, consumers need to follow a number of precautionary steps, such as monitoring accounts and frequently changing passwords. They should also look to transact with businesses that provide next-level security such as multi-factor authentication (MFA). MFA adds a layer of security that protects against the leading cause of a data breach–namely, weak passwords.”

Other interesting findings from the report include:

• 52% of Germans said they would spend 10+ minutes on security improvements to protect themselves
• 46% of US and 30% of UK residents agreed
• Fingerprint IDs top the list of most-trusted authentication methods for half of respondents
• 4-digit passwords and voice ID were ranked behind fingerprints