Despite the huge effort that cybersecurity companies take to raise world’s population security sensitivity, people still tend to ignore the advice and do not use security tools.

There are many reasons why security tools are ignored and not used by many people, a few major ones would be: people believe that they are not in danger of facing cyber threats and also that their information is not valuable to anyone; people don’t know the threats and the security tools they can use to protect themselves; others don’t take security precautions because it would take a lot of their time, for example having long and hard to remember passwords, some people even think that they would encounter bigger loss if they spend a lot of time following security precautions than actually getting their social media accounts hacked or similar threats; some people find using security tools too difficult, they do not understand how to use them. People lack of security sensitivity*.

*Security sensitivity — motivation to use and awareness of privacy and security tools and knowledge of how to use them.

Why we need to be security sensitive

Now is the time to stop and think about what benefits the web has brought us, and how it made the world closer to us, information reachable and our lives more convenient. It is also time to think what threats did the web brought. Most of us think about the web as a most significant invention, and this is good, but we need to think from the point that while our footprints on the web are increasing, threats are increasing at the same pace. Web was created to be open for everyone, but if we do not take security precautions it may actually take away our online freedom. With the internet we lose our privacy, at the same time we might lose our online identities, our information, even our bank accounts to hackers. Cyber fraud is currently the fastest growing crime in the US. Phishing, identity theft, data breach, stolen accounts, malware and many more cyber threats hide on the internet.

Social influence on security sensitivity

Security behavior should be looked at the same as at other human behavior — as a social system. Sociology science illustrates human behavior as a system made from people’s ability to affect others perceptions with words and actions. This goes the same talking about security sensitivity. Many researches showed that social influence drive innovation and new technology adoption. This is especially effective if people share their own experience facing cyber attacks. Basically it is not the government, it is not the cybersecurity companies that should talk about how important is to make sure you are secure online, but every each one of us, since our voices will be the most effective ones and would drive social movement towards securing our freedom online.

If you are interested in learning how can you protect yourself in different cases and overall about security online Surfshark (they are a VPN provider, one of the security tools that makes you safer online) has an informative blog that you can look at here: https://surfshark.com/blog

Remember, we are the ones building the future society and we are the ones who can make it secure and free, we just need to talk about it more.