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New Survey Shows Women Less Concerned About Cybercrime Than Men

By Paul Liu
Monday, November 9th, 2015

Who would have thought that gender division exists even in the world of online security cybercrime? But apparently it does. As per the results of a survey conducted by the Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab and market research company B2B International, women are far less concerned about protecting their personal data and online activities on the web than men. This is indeed a worrying sign since online criminals often make no distinction between women and men while carrying out their attacks.

According to the survey results published by Kaspersky, just 19 percent of women participants believed that they could become a victim of a cybercrime. The corresponding figure for men stood at 25 percent which shows that people in general are still not ready to believe that they could fall prey to cybercriminals. What’s more, women who participated in the survey showed far less awareness about the latest types of security threats than men. For instance, 38 percent of women respondents were not aware of ransomwares (as compared to 27 percent men), 34 percent women feigned ignorance or knew very little about mobile malwares (the figure for men was 23 percent) while 34 percent ladies and 21 percent men admitted that they didn’t know what an exploit was. However, both men and women respondents admitted about being worried about online banking frauds (59 percent men, 64 percent women) and the security of their financial data while making online payments (46 percent men, 51 percent women). Additionally, 41 percent of the female survey participants also admitted of being worried about cyber spying as compared to 38 percent men.

The general lack of awareness about security threats not only makes women prime targets for cybercrimes, it also causes them to pay very little attention to the preventive measures available that could protect them against such threats. For instance, 36 percent of women participants didn’t take any kind of precaution to protect their data while sharing their computer or mobile devices with their colleagues, family members or friends (the corresponding figure for men was 28 percent). Additionally, 13 percent of women respondents had no security software on their devices as compared to 10 percent of men. On the positive side, 68 percent of women participants admitted to making backup copies of their data as compared to 75 percent men.

Despite the above statistics, the survey shows that men are far more likely to become victims of cybercrime than women. According to the statistics revealed by Kaspersky (collected over a 12 month period preceding the survey), 47 percent of men faced attacks which targeted their financial data (as compared to 39 percent women), 35 percent faced malware related attacks (as compared to 27 percent women) while 22 percent suffered financial consequences due to cyber-attacks (the corresponding figure for women was 19 percent). While this seems like an anomaly, it needs to be remembered that women are far more concerned about the security of their financial transactions as compared to other types of online activities. Commenting on the results, Kaspersky’s Head of Consumer Product Management Elena Kharchenko says that people need to take extra precautions in order to secure their online presence and data just like they do it in the real life.