7 Reasons Consumers Don’t Take Action on Cybersecurity

One of the more important lessons of this year’s National Cyber Security Awareness Month is that awareness of cyber issues among consumers is very high, but translating that knowledge into action continues to lag.

This trend was underscored once again by two new studies that were released last month.

One issued by Arbor Networks reported a broad anxiety among Americans about their personal online safety, with at least 75% of consumers concerned about their security, privacy, malware or websites tracking them.

“The big takeaway from this survey is that the relentless headlines about cyber attacks have led to anxiety among a vast majority of Americans,” said Christopher Gaebler, chief marketing officer at Arbor Networks in a press release, adding that this anxiety has not led Americans to protect themselves more.

In another survey by MarkMonitor, 71% of consumers agree that a breach compromises an organization’s reputation and another 65% said an incident decreased trust in the brand.

While MarkMonitor pointed out that 54% of consumers say they limit the number of personal details they provide websites and another 50% check the padlock symbol on the web address bar, the study also pointed out that 37% of consumers still don’t understand what the Dark Web is or how it operates.

Using data points from both studies, here are seven reasons why consumers don’t take more aggressive action to protect themselves online.