Survey: Two thirds of Brits fear identity theft
May 2022 by GMX
Almost two thirds of British people are concerned (50%) or even very concerned (14%) about being affected by identity theft. The majority fear that strangers could buy things (61%) or open new accounts using the stolen identity (53%). Identity theft is a crime in which criminals gain access to online accounts and act on behalf of their victims. Many respondents worry that their most private information ends up in someone else’s hands or becomes open to the public (40%), or that strangers sign contracts in their names (39%). These are the results of a representative survey commissioned by the e-mail provider GMX.
Need to catch up on password security
There is an urgent need to catch up in the use of secure passwords: Almost one third (28%) of Internet users in the UK include personal information in their passwords, such as pet names (10%), the birth dates of family members, partners or friends (7%), and important dates such as anniversaries (6%). Much of this information can often be found on social media, making such passwords easy to guess.
"Identity theft is a real nightmare for many internet users. Particular attention should be paid to your email account, as this is how you log in to most services and reset passwords. In addition to a strong, unique password for each internet service, you should also activate two-factor authentication," says Jan Oetjen, CEO of GMX.
After activating two-factor authentication (2FA), the password is no longer sufficient to log into the Internet account. In addition, a second authentication factor must be entered when logging in, to which only the account holder can have access. In most cases, the second factor is a unique numerical code received by SMS or generated in a smartphone app, for example.
Survey methodology: The data used is based on an online survey conducted by YouGov Deutschland GmbH, in which 2118 people in the UK participated between 04 and 05 May 2022. The results were weighted and are representative of the population aged 18 and over.