Cyber ​​Protection Week: 3 most interesting insights into information security for private users

On April 2, 2021, the annual event – Cyber ​​Protection Week, which was formerly called BackUp Day, ended. In recent years, we had to move away from the one-day format, because there are a lot of topics for discussion, and to talk not only about backup, but also about other aspects of cyber defense. Today we share the main conclusions that were made at the end of Cyber ​​Protection Week 2021, taking into account the research and surveys of the event participants.

This year as part of Cyber ​​Protection Week a survey of 2,200 users from 22 different countries on 6 continents was conducted and in this post we want to share the results. In addition to traditional questions, we wanted to know how people were affected by the events of last year – the COVID pandemic, lockdowns and restrictions introduced in different countries. In the past, we have already written that the topic of the coronavirus itself has created a pretext for many manipulations and cyberattacks. But it was interesting to know how users themselves assess the dynamics of the threats they faced in reality. Indeed, during self-isolation, dependence on the safety of data and digital services increased significantly

1. Data loss is increasing, and the level of protection is decreasing

The survey showed that every tenth user does not back up their data and does not install such systems on their devices. These people, as a rule, believe that they cannot lose their data or believe that this will not be critical for them.

At the same time, ¾ of personal users, who actually practice backup, were engaged in their restoration. Thus, the problem of data loss does exist among private users. But the saddest thing is that for 79% of them, the recovery process eventually took up to 12 hours, during which people tried to access their systems and files. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the recovery procedure is performed relatively rarely, and perhaps with an insufficiently thought out process of the backup itself.

In any case, there are more cases of data loss by private users compared to last year. Almost 75% have experienced permanent data loss that they could not recover. And this figure will only grow for those who continue to live without any data protection solutions.

2. Users were not aware of most of the threats

Despite the fact that during the pandemic the number of cyber attacks increased by 400%, Research has shown that almost 25% of private users have never heard of ransomware, cryptojacking, DoS / DDoS attacks, or IoT hacks. For the readers of Habr, this may seem strange, but a significant part of ordinary users are not at all aware of what can happen to their data. And these results from the Cyber ​​Protection Week Report directly correlate with the amount of data loss by private users.

Almost 40% of private users noted that they would not even understand if someone accessed or changed their data. This figure is up 10% compared to the results of Cyber ​​Protection Week 2020. Even more people (43%) do not know if the installed security software can counter zero-day attacks. And this is a serious problem, because taking into account the use of artificial intelligence and ready-made constructors, experts every day discover 350,000 new types of malware. It turns out that each such instance can compromise the data of poorly protected users.

3. The safety of ordinary users is most often dependent on automated procedures.

Yes, today many users take certain actions to protect their privacy online. However, these steps usually do not go beyond the basic procedures that are applied automatically or even forcibly. For example, people set more complex passwords because they cannot sign up without them, and include Wi-Fi protection and multi-factor authentication in applications if they are strongly encouraged to do so.

And while we are seeing a 20% increase in the number of users using cloud backup compared to last year, this is mainly due to the fact that many digital services have started to perform it automatically. Alas, users rarely go beyond these basic steps, because for more subtle protection it is necessary to take proactive actions and be aware of both the threats themselves and the damage they can cause.

Conclusion

The growing range of threats, coupled with a low awareness of users who do not dive too deeply into IT, create excellent conditions for new attacks and data manipulation. Considering the disappointing statistics, malware is increasingly finding a way to get on the victim’s computer, so we recommend helping your friends and family set up their cyber defense properly so that they do not become another victim of cybercriminals.

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