News item | 05-10-2022 | 4:00 pm
Almost three quarters of the Dutch consider their own knowledge about online risks as phishing, hack and malware fair to good. 69% of Dutch consumers and 56% of companies do not report or report cyber attacks or crime. And a quarter of small SMEs take no action at all to be digitally secure. This is evident from Alert Online 2022, the annual survey into the awareness of Dutch people around cybersecurity commissioned by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate (EZK).
Minister Micky Adriaansens (Economic Affairs and Climate): “We see that the digital awareness of consumers and companies has increased. Many Dutch people are willing to take security measures, such as performing updates or logging into systems or devices. That alone is not enough. It’s also about being more alert. So I call on consumers and companies to report online risks more often and especially small SMEs to make digital security a daily part of their entrepreneurship.”
Phishing remains the most experienced form of cybercrime
A third of the research group themselves had to deal with phishing. As in 2021, friend-in-emergency fraud (13%) and malware (11%) part of the mentioned top-3. hacking (11%) follows closely behind. These four forms of cyber risks are also mentioned most frequently when asked what people think they might encounter.
45% of the Dutch are not very concerned about their online safety in their private situation. Half of these say they are always updating their smart devices. Checking for fake websites and links, using so-called two-factor authentication when logging in, doing virus scans and changing passwords also give two in five Dutch people a feeling of security. As in 2021 and 2020, the majority of Dutch people (61%) are not very concerned about a cyber attack.
The full Alert Online 2022 survey among 1,200 Dutch people and more than 1,100 IT employees and business leaders, conducted by I&O Research on behalf of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, can be read here.