Report: Just 4% Of Aussies Trust Social Media

Next time you’re standing next to a couple of friends consider this; one of you has experienced cyber crime. And over half of the people you know think that it is at least somewhat likely they will experience cyber crime in the next year. That’s according to a poll carried out late last year of over 1000 Aussies by The Harris Poll as part of the 2018 Norton LifeLock Cyber Safety Insights Report.

The report found that as a result of cybercrime in the past year, the average Aussie lost about $240 and spent most of a work day trying to replace lost devices or files or money. 31% spent a week or more dealing with the problem. That equates to 37 million hours and $1.3 billion as an impact of cyber crime in the past year if you extrapolate the data from the report.

The most common cyber crimes ever experienced by Australians include:

• 26% of people have detected malicious software on a computer, Wi-Fi network smartphone, tablet, smart home or other connected device
• 14% detected unauthorised access on an online banking of other financial account
• 12% detected unauthorised access on an email account

Trust is a major issue with almost three in four Australians more alarmed than ever about their privacy. Just 20% trust government with the same proportion trusting financial services. Although given the recent Royal Commission into the banking industry that’s hardly surprising.

We have the least amount of trust for social media providers at only 4%. 17% respondents have gone so far as to delete a social media account due to privacy concerns in the past 12 months.

Given the impact of cybercrime and our mistrust of government and social media companies – what can we do?

1. Protect your devices and information from the latest online threats with a robust multi-platform security solution and update it regularly
2. Don’t open suspicious-looking emails as the links in these emails or texts may contain malicious software that can download malware and spyware
3. Always use a VPN on public Wi-Fi
4. Don’t just accept terms and conditions before opening an account or downloading an application
5. Set the privacy and security settings on web services, social networks and devices to your comfort level for information sharing – don’t just accept the defaults
6. Switch on two-step verification or multi-factor authentication wherever you can and always change default passwords to something strong

I’ve also noticed my friends becoming more cautious about sharing pics of their kids online. Always obscure school logos, signs and other objects in photos that make it easy to know where your kids are. And either crop or blur out kids that aren’t yours and for whom you don’t have permission to share images.

Teach your kids about online safety by sitting with them and showing them how to be safe online.

[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2019/01/why-you-need-to-avoid-the-10-year-facebook-challenge/” thumb=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2019/01/Courtney-Snowden-410×231.jpg” title=”Facebook’s ‘#10yearchallenge’ May Have Been A Huge Mistake” excerpt=”The 10-year challenge was all fun and memes until last week after a tweet moved thousands of people to worry: are we unknowingly helping giant corporations to improve their algorithms for biometric identification and age progression?”]