{"id":2209,"date":"2017-04-03T09:13:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T07:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/?p=2209"},"modified":"2017-04-03T09:14:30","modified_gmt":"2017-04-03T07:14:30","slug":"pew-should-call-a-do-over-on-its-cybersecurity-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/?p=2209","title":{"rendered":"Pew should evolve its cybersecurity survey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Last year, Pew Research surveyed<\/a> just over 1,000 people to try to get a feel for how informed they are about cybersecurity.\u00a0 That\u2019s a great idea because it informs us as a society as to how well consumers are able to defend themselves against common attacks.\u00a0\u00a0 Let\u2019s consider some ways that this survey could be evolved, and how consumers can mitigate certain common risks.\u00a0 Keep in mind that Pew conducted the survey in June of last year in a fast changing world.<\/p>\n

Several of the questions related to phishing, Wifi access points and VPNs.\u00a0 VPNs have been in the news recently because of the Trump administration\u2019s and Congress\u2019\u00a0 backtracking on privacy protections<\/a>.\u00a0 While privacy invasion by service providers is a serious problem, accessing one\u2019s bank at an open access point is probably considerably less so.\u00a0 There are two reasons for this.\u00a0 First, banks almost all make use of TLS to protect communications.\u00a0 Attempts to fake bank sites by intercepting communications will, at the very least produce a warning that browser manufacturers have made increasingly difficult to bypass.\u00a0 Second, many financial institutions make use of apps in mobile devices that take some care to validate that the user is actually talking to their service.\u00a0 In this way, these apps actually mark a significant reduction in phishing risk.\u00a0 Yes, the implication is that using a laptop with a web browser is a slightly riskier means to access your bank than the app it likely provides, and yes, there\u2019s a question hiding there for Pew in its survey.<\/p>\n

Another question on the survey refers to password quality.\u00a0 While this is something of a problem, there are two bigger problems hiding that consumers should understand:<\/p>\n