UK consumers want businesses to do more to protect their data

Protecting your digital footprint is growing more important and the results from a survey of 2,000 UK adults by Kaspersky Lab finds that people believe there is not enough business or state protection currently in place to defend it.

The study finds 41 percent of UK respondents think that businesses should do more to protect their personal data, including passwords, addresses and bank account details, from hacking.

More than a quarter think there is not enough state support with regards to data security and cyber-protection and 12 percent have been so concerned by a high-profile data breach that they have shut down one or more of their social media accounts in response.

Despite growing numbers of data breaches, however, less than a third (34 percent) of respondents say they have strengthened their passwords. In addition under half (43 percent) admit to having up-to-date security protection on all their devices.

While 81 percent of respondents think everyone has something they don't want to reveal to others, only half of 25–34-year-old respondents say they keep secrets in their heads. 23 percent keep secrets on their mobile phone, 18 percent in their emails and 17 percent in the cloud.

"We have become a society built upon digital secrets, with those secrets becoming commoditised and traded on the dark web," says David Emm, principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab. "There is more that businesses can and should do to help protect their customers -- including security solutions that significantly mitigate the risk of a successful attack, running fully updated software, performing regular security audits and performing penetration testing. However, there is also much that consumers can do to protect themselves. That includes strengthening their passwords and protecting all their devices."

The full report is available from the Kaspersky site.

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