via threatpost.com: Most Americans Fail Cybersecurity Quiz

Author: Tom Spring

Study participants fail to correctly identify core security concepts and tools to help them stay safe online.

When it comes to two-factor authentication and secure web browsing, most Americans don’t know their HTTPS from their 2FA to save their digital bacon: A Pew Research Center study found most Americans don’t have a firm grasp of cybersecurity issues core to protecting their data.

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In a survey of 4,272 respondents, a majority of participants struggled to understand basic digital privacy concepts, such as private browsing mode. According to the study, 49 percent of respondents were unsure what private browsing does, and only 24 percent knew it that it hides browser history from other users of the same computer, not from employers and other stakeholders.

“This survey consisted of 10 questions designed to test Americans’ knowledge of a range of digital topics, such as cybersecurity or the business side of social-media companies,” wrote Emily Vogels and Monica Anderson, co-authors of the report. Only 2 percent of respondents got all 10 questions correct, and only a fifth (20 percent) answered seven or more questions correctly. The median number of correct answers was four, according the study.

A concept more familiar to survey participants was phishing. A total of 67 percent of respondents correctly stated phishing scams can appear in emails, websites, social media and text messages. Cookies were also correctly identified by participants, with 63 percent correctly understanding they were used by websites to track user visits.

Still others were shaky (not sure) when it came to understanding the concept of net neutrality (45 percent), website privacy policies (48 percent) and what https:// in a URL indicates (30 percent).

“Americans’ knowledge of the business side of social-media companies is also relatively low,” wrote Vogels and Anderson. Only 29 percent of respondents knew that WhatsApp and Instagram are owned by Facebook. Seventy-seven percent of survey-takers said they were unsure who Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey was when shown a picture of him.

When factoring in levels of higher education, the Pew Research Center found that college graduates answered six of the 10 questions correctly, compared to four answered correctly by those who have attended college but have not obtained a degree, and three by those with a high school diploma or less.

“For all 10 questions, there are double-digit gaps between those who have a bachelor’s or advanced degree and those who have a high school education or less,” researchers wrote.

Age also plays a factor in cybersecurity awareness. The Pew Research Center study found that “18- to 29-year-olds correctly answered a median of five out of 10 questions, compared with a median of three among those ages 65 and older.”

The Americans and Digital Knowledge study was conducted by the Pew Research Center for Internet and Technology in June.

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My 2 sats on this...

Well, there you have it! If you see yourself in the majority group of this survey you maybe should pay a little more attention to caber security in general. We're simply not sufficiently protected by covering possibly some of the bases in this field. On the other hand staying on top of cyber security as a whole is a big challenge next to impossible almost even for those who make a living with cyber security, defenses and so on.

So, what can we/you do?

I guess you reading this here right now shows that your interested in this and that's already much more than the majority of people who simply couldn't care less.

They've possibly bought there IT equipment like smart phones, tablets, computers and smart home devices under the impression that if they use a pin or password on their stuff and maybe even used an extra few bucks for an virus protection on an computer that all will be fine...

Sorry to break this to you here it's not so easy I'm afraid.

Maybe somewhere down the road some general protection measures will give us a kind of higher baseline protection but Imho mid- to long term you really should pursuit to gain a little more knowledge about cyber security in general.

I'm not sure if knowing who Jack Dorsey is is so important in this or to know what net neutrality is will help you to protect yourself from any given cyber attacker but many other points in the mentioned questionnaire can help really help you a little to navigate through these choppy waters.

As with many knowledge prone fields managing what is relevant for yourself and what is not probably helps a little to bite size this information flood.

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What do you think?

Is investing a little of your time and attention into cyber security worth something to you?

Let me know with a comment please!

Cheers,
Lucky