A full 58 percent of respondents in a recent survey in the Asia-Pacific region experienced a data breach in the past 12 months.
This is just one finding from the ESET APAC Consumer Survey 2018, which was carried out in Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand between October and December 2018. In each country, it gathered input from 2,000 respondents.
Among other things, the survey sought to get a sense of people’s sentiments towards organizations that had suffered damaging security incidents, albeit not necessarily with direct implications for the respondents themselves.
After public trust in a company has been dented as a result of a breach or hack, the best way, according to many respondents, to begin undoing the reputational damage is simple: apologize and come clean on what happened and how it was resolved. This approach was favored by nearly one in every three (32%) people, whereas another 25% said that the key thing the company should do is provide proof that the right precautions are in place to prevent such incidents in the future.
Turning to another issue, the survey found that only three in every ten parents deploy parental controls on their children's smart devices. That’s despite the fact that such tools can be helpful in ensuring that children only engage with platforms and content that is suitable and safe for their age.
Children, and not only them, may be exposed to a range of threats on social media, most often by sharing too many details of their lives. And this is precisely what many respondents appear to be doing, as nearly one third of them admitted to having shared the kind of information with strangers over social media that might help crooks commit identity theft or launch social engineering campaigns.
But so as not to end on a downer, almost 80% percent of all respondents indicated that they’re willing to learn about, and develop a better understanding of, cyber-threats.
To be sure, these are just a few morsels of information that can be extrapolated from the survey. To learn more about the respondents’ views on these and other issues, you may want to refer to the report itself. It covers a smorgasbord of topics, including password security, accessing the internet on smartphones, safe online shopping, and the implications of our use of social media for privacy and security. The report also provides a bunch of easy-to-apply tips and tricks for your online safety.
