Today, Consumer Reports, Aspen Digital, and Global Cyber Alliance released the third annual Consumer Cyber Readiness report. The report highlights findings from two nationally representative surveys of over 2,000 US adults conducted by CR in April 2024 and May 2024. It also provides key leadership perspectives from government, industry, and civil society. The report also contains year-over-year findings on cybersecurity behavior, but of particular interest are new questions from this year that give us insight into consumer scams and their attack vectors. For example, we learned that a surprising percentage of people are losing money to digital scams. We’ve also included recommendations for both companies and consumers in the report.
The Road Ahead
Compared to last year, consumer cybersecurity hygiene habits remain flat. The use of quality passwords and multi-factor authentication (MFA) is roughly the same as it was a year ago, meaning it’s time to keep a close eye on adoption of passkeys. This illustrates that the public, private, and nonprofit sectors must continue working together to create a safer digital ecosystem for consumers.