About half of Romanians who use smart gadgets (46%) are concerned that their devices might be remotely controlled by hackers. However, more than a quarter of them admit they are using the same password for all accounts and devices, reveals an iSense Solutions study, commissioned by Bitdefender.
The study shows that 70% of the Romanians have smartphone, laptop, tablet, smart TV or computer, with almost a quarter of the city dwellers bought cutting edge terminals such as smart watches (24%), smart wireless cameras to monitor the house or the baby (21%), e-readers (20%), game consoles (15%) or fitness bracelets (14%).
Against this trend, about 46% of the respondents voiced their concern that a potential hacker might take over control over their smart devices anytime, which would expose them to personal data theft, espionage and intrusion in the private life.
Cyber security experts with Bitdefender warn that these vulnerabilities allow even amateur hackers to easily compromise the users’ Internet network, also counting on the fact that many Romanians don’t know they are living in a smart house and, as such, they are not aware of the threats that are exposing to.
The study also says that Romanians are not updating the operating system on their devices in due time, not even on the devices they are using most frequently such as laptop, tablet or computer. Therefore, 20% of the laptop users and over half of the smart TV owners have not updated the software with the latest version, blaming on the lack of time or on not being familiar with the procedure.
Moreover, more than a quarter of the Romanians are using the same password for all their accounts and devices, while another 29% are using the same few passwords by rotation.
The IT experts warn over the risk of using identical passwords, sometimes consisting just in letters and recommend their being replaced with various combinations of letter, figures and symbols and their regular changing.