A recent survey highlights just how extreme people will go to protect their digital assets and reputation. According to an online survey of 2,000 U.S. adults, 39% would forgo sex for a year if it guaranteed they would be forever cybersecure. The split between men and women was offset in the results, with more women (44%) willing to sacrifice sex for a year, as compared to men (34%). Regardless, it seems a bit excessive.
The survey, conducted by Harris Poll, give hints to how much people value their digital world and fear the hacks and exposures which are impacting, celebrities, consumers, and businesses. Fueling this unusual trade-off is the inconvenience and complexity of passwords and resets, which those surveyed expressed great discontent. About the same percentage (41%) opted to give up their favorite food for a month, rather than navigate password resets for all their accounts. Remembering or storing different strong passwords for each site is only getting worse, the larger our online lives grow.
The combination of so many logins, account names, and passwords is becoming an overwhelming burden necessary to stave away data loss, embarrassment, or denial of entry to many sites. Our identities, financial, health, social, and government records are becoming more exposed, raising the stakes to cybersecurity. For about 4 in 10, this has already risen to a shocking level of what they would sacrifice for peace of mind.
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