It’s a question that’s been top-of-mind lately, as cyber breaches increasingly affect individual users. In 2017 alone, the Equifax breach put the personal information of 145.5 million Americans at risk; Gmail and Instagram hacks in the same year demonstrated how applications we use every day can put us at risk. Americans’ views are privacy is rapidly declining: according to the Pew Research Center, the majority of Americans have lost trust in the ability of institutions, especially the federal government and social media sites, for digital safety or to protect personal information.
Surprisingly, despite this declining trust and real-life experiences with cyber threats, the majority of Americans still aren’t following cybersecurity best practices in their own digital lives. According to a recent password security study conducted by Varonis, most Americans aren’t taking proper password security measures, using ill-advised password management techniques and rarely changing their passwords.
