Online Security Precautions Taken By Americans, March 2015 [CHART]

Online Security Precautions Taken By Americans, March 2015 [CHART]

Remember the Heartbleed security bug—also known as “the most dangerous security flaw on the web”? Nearly nine in 10 (86%) US internet users don’t, according to March 2015 research by Harris Interactive for Dashlane.

While consumers are worried that companies don’t do enough to protect their digital privacy, the study found that they weren’t taking that many steps themselves. Fully 44% of the 2,000-plus adults polled said they hadn’t taken any digital security precautions in the past 30 days. Those who had were most likely to have taken a simple step and changed online passwords. More intense precautions such as downloading a security software or app or signing up for credit card monitoring were far less common.

November 2014 research by Ipsos for the Centre for International Governance Innovation looked at which privacy-related changes internet users in select countries had made in their online behavior in the past year. Respondents in the US—where approximately 1,000 internet users ages 18 to 64 were polled—were once again most likely to have changed their passwords, with four in 10 saying they did so regularly. This tied avoiding certain internet sites and apps for first place. Besides these two rather easy steps, respondents were far less likely to have cut back on activities, and three in 10 had made no changes. Read the rest at eMarketer.