March 3 - Academic Achievement, Age, Human Behavior, and Getting Hacked
Your College Degree - doesn't matter when it comes to being a victim
From my initial survey, 81 out of 134 respondents (ranging from 12 to 84 years old) say they have been the victim of a cyber attack of some sort. Simply put, that's about 60% of you. Additionally, out of those 81 who have been victims, 67 have college degrees or higher, and the ages of these 67 highly-educated respondents range from 27 to 69.
So what does this tell me? Seems like either the younger crowd are unaware if they have been the victim of a cyber attack (do they even care? I know my kids would just ask me to buy them new devices or create a new social media account if one of their accounts got hacked), and seems like a high level of academic achievement does not necessarily mean one can "outsmart" a cyber attack.
Human Behavior - we cannot seem to resist opening emails
109 responded that they have opened emails (or a text message) and only AFTER having opened the email, questioned whether or not it was some sort of SPAM. That's more than 80% of you!
According to the 2019 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (https://enterprise.verizon.com/resources/reports/dbir/), email was the TOP delivery method for malware. In 2019, 94% of malware was delivered through email. Don't open those suspicious emails and texts, and especially do not click any links or download any attachments in those suspicious emails and texts!