Fear Hackers more than Governments
Americans do care a lot about privacy. According to Pew Research 87% of them are aware of the revelations from Edward Snowden regarding government surveillance programs. 30% have decided to take at least one step to protect their information from the government.
Even if Americans feel a strong need to be protected by their government in the post 9/11 world, they remain Benjamin Franklin’s heirs: ‟Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
“Most of the bad things that happen to users of the Internet today are the result of actions by hackers.”
But as far as online security is concerned, being legitimately concerned about government surveillance should not prevent us from looking at other risks that are probably more concrete and more immediate. Most of the bad things that happen to users of the Internet today are the result of actions by hackers who steal personal data for financial gain. Here is the paradox: if 87% of Americans have heard about Snowden’s revelations, only 14% have heard about Heartbleed, according to the Harris Poll conducted by Dashlane. We all know friends who have been hacked for money. Most of us have never met anyone who has been directly impacted by government surveillance, at least in democratic countries.
“The government surveillance threat is for the time being more theoretical.”
The threat of Heartbleed was very concrete. Almost half of all websites used every day by consumers had been open for years to hackers who could steal passwords, credit card numbers, and social security numbers from them. This should have prompted consumers to take action, update their passwords, and start adopting a good password hygiene which has now become easy thanks to the Password Management solutions that exist today. It did not. On another hand, for most of us, the government surveillance threat is for the time being more theoretical. It makes a lot of sense to bring the issue to the attention of the public because it has the potential to affect the concept of Democracy. But today it has much less effect on people’s life and Internet safety than major breaches like Heartbleed.
No matter how their concerns are raised, what matters is that consumers improve their online security behavior to stay safe from hackers. The good news is that according to Pew Research, 25% of people who are aware of Government surveillance decided to improve the security of their online data and use stronger passwords. According to Dashlane Harris Poll, the small number of people whose awareness was raised after Heartbleed also took actions: 50% updated at least one password.
“Even without spying on your navigation, a lot can be discovered about your life, just by hacking your email account.”
Pew Research also shows that people who are concerned about privacy also start to look into privacy encryption browser extensions or proxy servers that can help them avoid surveillance. These are good things to do but it makes sense to protect your privacy only if you make sure that your personal data, today entirely stored in the cloud, is safe and protected from fraudulent access. And the only barrier that protects that data are your passwords. Even without spying on your navigation, a lot can be discovered about your life, just by hacking your email account. We at Dashlane have created Dashlane Scan to allow consumers to get a sense for all the stuff that sits in their email unprotected; Try it you will be blown away by the results.
When it comes to securing our online data stored in the various services we are using, very simple principles apply: strong alphanumeric randomly generated passwords, different for each website, stored in an encrypted format and regularly updated. A nightmare if you rely on your brain, but a very easy call if you trust a password manager, which by the way will also limit the impact of Phishing attacks and key loggers.
Everything that raises consumer awareness of online security issues is positive. But before trying to protect ourselves from government eavesdropping threats that remain theoretical for most of us, let’s make sure we are following basic security principles that protect us from the more real and immediate threat of organize cybercrime that has become a mutli-billion dollar industry even faster than drug trafficking.
