Study: Users don't much care about Heartbleed hacking dangers

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/02/study_users_dont_much_care_about_heartbleed_hacking_dangers/

By Shaun Nichols
The Register
2 May 2014

Despite dire warnings from security experts and a massive public awareness 
campaign, users are less aware of the Heartbleed flaw than other recent 
security threats.

So say researchers with the Pew Research Center. According to a public 
survey of 1,501 people conducted by the company, less than one fifth feel 
they are well versed on the dangers of the flaw, and less than 40 per cent 
have taken action to protect their accounts.

The survey (PDF) polled users on both the level of their awareness on the 
data-leaking OpenSSL flaw and the steps they have taken to change 
credentials which may have been harvested by attackers. The study of 1,501 
American adults was taken in the midst of the Heartbleed scare between the 
23-27 April.

During that time, researchers found that 60 per cent of adults had heard 
of Heartbleed in some form, though 41 per cent said that they had "a 
little" information about the flaw and just 19 per cent had heard "a lot" 
about it.

[...]



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