A third of Americans fell victim to cyberattacks last year

Just as businesses faced a record number of cyberattacks last year, so too did consumers with a new study from NordVPN revealing that a third of Americans (33%) encountered at least one cybersecurity issue in 2021.

Of those affected, half of them (49%) experienced email scams (or phishing emails), while more than a third suffered social media hacks (35%), payment fraud (32%), bank account hacks (29%) and identity theft (28%). 

According to cybersecurity expert at NordVPN, Daniel Markuson there was a 27 percent increase in cybersecurity incidents in the US last year when compared to 2020. Even though more people are now being impacted by cybersecurity issues, 50 percent of those surveyed said they think they are well prepared.

When asked about which personal cybersecurity incidents they are most concerned about this year, 51 percent worry their financial accounts will be hacked, 47 percent fear their identity will be stolen, 40 percent worry their social media accounts will get hacked, 37 percent wonder if their smart home devices will get hacked and listened to and 21 percent think their medical or vaccine records will be hacked.

As for the kinds of business cybersecurity incidents that have Americans worried this year, over half (54%) fear that a business will get hacked that reveals their financial information, 45 percent worry hackers will sell their personal information on the dark web and almost a quarter (25%) worry their organization will fall victim to a ransomware attack leading them to lose money and possibly even their jobs.

Bad online habits

NordVPN's latest study also showed that more than a third of Americans don't update their passwords frequently which corresponds with recent research from NordPass which discovered that the most popular password in the US is still “123456”.

American respondents also confessed to visiting questionable websites (30%), using public Wi-Fi without a VPN (29%) and opening links in emails or text messages without validating them first (27%). Other bad habits included buying products or services from questionable websites (24%) and storing their passwords on unsecure devices (23%).

Markuson recommends that Americans adopt better online habits and use cybersecurity tools such as a VPN, antivirus and a password manager to further protect themselves from cyberattacks.

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