Internet scepticism high among users

The majority of UK office workers have trouble deciding who to trust in the digital world, however this isn’t surprising considering 14 percent have already been badly affected by cybercrime, a new survey from PhishMe® Inc. has revealed.

The study looked at the attitudes of 1,000 UK office workers towards cybercrime and phishing and revealed that a staggering 60 percent of respondents find it difficult deciding which sources to trust online. Of the websites UK office workers do trust, banks come out on top with 55 percent of respondents saying they trust their own bank. Dating websites are the least trusted with only 0.3 percent of respondents saying they feel safe using the sites.

When respondents were asked which online sources they do trust the findings were:
• 55 percent of respondents trust their own bank
• 19 percent of respondents trust online retailers
• 17 percent of respondent trust other banks
• 10 percent of respondents trust Facebook
• 6 percent of respondents trust the media
• 5 percent of respondents trust LinkedIn and Twitter
• 2 percent trust online blogs
• 0.3 percent of respondents trust dating sites
•
In response to the survey findings Rohyt Belani, CEO and co-founder of PhishMe said: “Given the media attention on recent data breaches against seemingly safe organisations, it doesn’t surprise me that UK office workers feel vulnerable in the online world. Phishing attacks are rife in the digital world and it is vital that Internet users be wary of providing personal information which could be used against them for nefarious purposes. Organisations should provide staff with training on how to spot online threats because the attackers will often go after employees first, if they want to compromise an organisation’s network.”

Other findings revealed that almost half of UK office workers are more worried about being phished at home than at work; however, given that one in seven respondents have or know someone who has been badly affected by cybercrime, this figure is not surprising.
Of the people who have already been affected by cybercrime:
• Over half of the people experienced financial loss
• Over a third experienced identity theft
• Over a fifth experienced data loss
• Over a third were left with an infected computer
Belani added, “The fact that one in seven office workers have already been affected by cybercrime should be a big concern for organisations because these threats could potentially be brought into a corporate network through bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies and the use of consumer cloud applications within the work place. Organisations that provide their employees with continuous security training will not only be significantly more prepared, they will also be able to leverage their employees for an additional source of threat intelligence.”