Document Shredder

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

In a survey of 700 people released by IBM today, three times as many people felt they would be the victim of a cybercrime over the next 12 months than felt they would be the victim of a physical one. According to the survey, 6% of respondents indicated they had been the victim of a cybercrime over the preceding 12 months, while 7% said they had been the victim of a physical crime.

Some interesting numbers from the survey: over the last 12 months: 29% have stopped reading credit / debit card info over the phone, 18% have stopped paying bills online, 38% don’t bank online, 37% don’t use credit cards online.

We Say: I can understand how they feel. I’ve been the victim of Internet-based ID theft 3 times already … and I’m not the type to fall for a phishing scam or give my credit card number to unknown people. I noticed that the survey said 53% of Americans hold themselves most responsible for protecting themselves from cybercrime (which is a good idea, considering the number of phishing and other scams that go on).

I also noticed some good trends: 85% either destroy or securely store documents that might have personal info on them, 70% only use shopping sites with secure checkout … puzzlingly, 16% have stopped playing online games. I haven’t been hacked yet playing City of Heroes, but maybe some have. :-)