The Latest study by a leading cybersecurity company NordVPN found that one third of Americans (33%) encountered at least one cybersecurity issue last year. Of those, half of them (49%) experienced email scams (or phishing emails), while more than one third were affected by social media hacks (35%), payment fraud (32%), bank account hacks (29%) and identity theft (28%).                                                                

"Year after year we see growth in cybersecurity incidents in the US. In fact there was a 27% increase in 2021 compared to 2020. With these numbers on the rise, more and more people will be impacted by those cybersecurity issues, even though 50% of our respondents think that they are well prepared," sids Daniel Markuson, cybersecurity expert at NordVPN.  

What are the Americans most worried about in 2022?

Regardless of the 50% of Americans that said they think they're well prepared, 35% of those surveyed expect to personally experience cybersecurity issues in the coming year. When asked which personal cybersecurity incidents they are most concerned with in 2022: 

• 51% worry their financial accounts will be hacked    
• 47% fear their identity will get stolen
• 40% fret their social media accounts will get hacked
• 37% wonder if their smart devices will get hacked and listened to
• 21% think their medical/vaccine records will be hacked
  

When asked which business cybersecurity incident they are most concerned with in 2022, 54% of respondents fear that a business will get hacked that reveals their financial information, 45% worry hackers sell their personal information on the dark web and another 25% worry their own organization's data will be held for ransom, causing them to lose money and threaten their job. 

Which bad online habits make Americans more vulnerable?

The study showed that more than a third of Americans don't update their passwords on time. This corresponds with the latest research by NordPass which discovered that the most popular password in the US remains "123456".

About the same number of respondents confessed to visiting questionable websites (30%), using public wifi without the protection of a VPN (29%) and opening links that are emailed or texted without validating them first (27%). Other bad habits included buying products or services from questionable websites (24%), and storing passwords on unsecure devices (23%).

"Only better online habits can help people feel safer on the internet. Sophisticated passwords, cybersecurity tools (such as VPN, antivirus and password manager) and general awareness will help people protect their most valuable information online in the upcoming year," added Daniel Markuson from NordVPN.