The IT Nerd

Let’s start with some things that won’t surprise you:

• More than half of Canadians (57 per cent) believe keeping up with technology is impossible in this date and age and three in five Canadians (68 per cent) worry about the safety of their information online.
• Given recent technological advances, three-quarters of Canadians (75 per cent) believe that protecting their online information is as important as ever and more than half of Canadians (55 per cent) say they are responsible for keeping their own information safe online, over security applications (20 per cent), Internet service providers (6 per cent), and the government (5 per cent).
• Three in five Canadians (60 per cent) find it overwhelming to maintain their privacy and security now that their families and households have so many devices
• 68 per cent find maintaining their privacy and security challenging now that they have so many online accounts and passwords – and use numerous cloud-based services.
• One in three Canadians (31 per cent) believe they would notice if they had been hacked or phished, but almost as many (28 per cent) admit they wouldn’t know if their information was actually compromised.
• Nearly half of Canadians (42 per cent) say they would know if their information had been hacked or phished because they would receive an alert from their bank.

• Nearly half of Canadians are unaware that smartphones and tablets need security software.
• Only half of Canadians (52 per cent) have security software installed on their smartphones
• Only two in five Canadians (41 per cent) have security software installed on their tablets.
• 44 per cent of those surveyed did not realize smartphones need security software, and 47 per cent did not realize tablets need security software.

Now the next group of findings show how often Canadians get affected by online security issues of various sorts. These may surprise you because of the fact that it appears to be very pervasive:

• One in three Canadians say they have been affected by security breaches (34 per cent report they have been hacked, and 31 report they have been phished), though their understanding of the threat landscape is limited – with one-third of Canadians believing Macs are immune to security breaches.
• More than 80 per cent of Canadians are unfamiliar with modern day internet threats, including:
  •   Zombie computers (87 per cent unfamiliar)
  •   Madware (86 per cent unfamiliar)
  •   DDoS attacks (84 per cent unfamiliar)
  •   Creepware (84 per cent unfamiliar)
  •   Ransomware (82 per cent unfamiliar)

The final group of findings illustrate areas where Canadians leave themselves open to “the bad guys”:

• Less than one-quarter of Canadians (23 per cent) understand exactly how mobile apps will use their data when they allow apps to access their device’s information.
• Four in five Canadians (81 per cent) rarely or never change primary account passwords or read terms of agreement or privacy settings in full.
• One in three Canadians (34 per cent) use the same (or a variation of the same) passwords for all online accounts.