TORONTO – Canadians are increasingly logging into their favourite cloud services on a mobile device, but are not taking the security precautions they ought to, according to a survey by International Data Corp. Canada (IDC Canada).
The survey found that the majority of Canadian mobile users need help to secure their devices. Only 21% say they are already doing everything they can to secure their devices, and 35% say they would like to improve security but don't know how.
Canadians are looking to their smartphone providers – operating system creators, manufacturers, and telecom service providers – for help in taking care of mobile security. When asked who the most responsible player in smartphone security is:
– 30% said primary responsibility belonged to the phone owner (with only 24% of those aged 18-29 feeling this way);
– 37% said primary responsibility is shared between the phone owner and providers; and
– 33% said primary responsibility belonged to providers.
Only 21% of respondents claim to be using a different unique password for each of their online accounts, and this number falls to 11% of younger users (ages 18-29). While just 5% are using the same password for all their online accounts, the vast majority (74%) are using the same few passwords repeatedly.
On top of this, online passwords are not being changed very often – only 44% had last changed an online password deliberately in the past month.
Canadian smartphone owners are also slow to protect their devices:
– 58% had locked their device with a PIN number, pattern or fingerprint reader;
– 47% had backed up the data stored in the device;
– 40% of Android users and 8% of iPhone users had installed an antivirus app on their device; and
– 29% had installed or activated a recovery app to track and wipe data from a stolen phone.
Conducted via the IDC Canada/Research Now Smartphone Panel, 903 Canadian smartphone owners were surveyed from April 24 to April 30, 2014. This study uses a mobile data collection methodology, and the results of surveys using this methodology cannot be extrapolated to the Canadian population as a whole.
www.idc.ca
