New Research Finds Human Error is Greatest Cybersecurity Threat

Cyber abuse is the latest epidemic that can do extensive damage to a person’s privacy, safety, and livelihood—including wreaking financial havoc on the companies they work for. We recently released Hueya Report 2017: Cyber Abuse and the Human Factor, a new report and survey that examines the impact and causes of cyber abuse. The findings indicate that half of all Americans have been victims of cyber abuse, while 80 percent know victims of cyber abuse. You can download the report here: https://www.hueya.io/report-2017/

What is cyber abuse?

We define it as identity theft, identity fraud, cyber crime, and cyberbullying. Cyber abuse can range from out-and-out theft, such as clearing out an individual’s bank accounts, to under-the-radar attacks such as online harassment. Cyber abuse awareness is at best an infrequent topic in most families: only six percent of families have regular conversations about cyber abuse.

What opens the door to cyber abuse?

The primary attack vector today is social media. Social media has become the “dial tone” of our lives. Social platforms enable us to share and interact, but over sharing can make people vulnerable to online crime, making it too easy for cyber criminals. Attackers prey on human weaknesses such as fear, trust, carelessness.

In today’s world, it’s a simple fact that hacking the human is far easier than hacking a business—but this fact falls outside of the way many businesses approach cybersecurity. Did you know that simply posting a photo of your child or your pet can aid a cyber criminal, for example, by giving them key information to support a social engineering scam attacking your employer? Because individuals and their workplaces are often so inter-connected online, cyber attacks involving individuals can easily spill over to the work place, and vice versa.

The human holds the key to improving safety online and minimizing cyber abuse. Download a free copy of the report at https://www.hueya.io/report-2017/ to check out simple steps for you to take control of your online identity, steps that cyber criminals don’t want you to know about.