Identity Theft: Not So Scary Anymore?

This article originally appeared on F5.com on 10.20.15.

With Halloween in our rearview mirror and the holiday shopping season upon us, a couple surveys are out examining our fears and in particular, our concerns about identity theft. Apparently, ID theft is not so scary anymore - like entering a haunted house for the hair-raising screams but walking out with nervous giggles.

Over at Bankrate.com, only 54% of surveyed tricksters says they are somewhat or very frightened of ID theft. That's down 80% from those who expressed the same level of concern back in 2008. Almost half, 43%, claim they have little or no fear, trouncing the 19% who were brave in 2008. This is all while the overall victim count remains at similar levels - 12.5 million in 2008 verses 12.7 million in 2014 according to Javelin Strategy & Research. As far as knowing someone who has been hit, 46% say they or a friend has been a victim compared to 34% in 2008.

They chalk it up to people being desensitized to breaches due to the almost weekly confessions of data intrusions. The general feeling is that if large retailers, health care providers and credit agencies can't keep my data safe, how can I. More of those same folks however are also following some good advice of shredding sensitive documents (72%), checking their credit report regularly (56%), avoiding insecure WiFi (54%) and almost 20% have frozen their credit files. These are all good ways to help you worry less.

And Chapman University published their Survey of American Fears, Wave 2 (2015) examining the fears of average Americans. The domains of fear include areas like crime, natural and man made disasters, personal anxieties, environment, technology and others. Along with the corruption, terrorism and warfare, identity theft comes in at 39.6% and credit card fraud sits at 36.9%. Both in the Top 10.



So, while ID theft is still one of our top fears, by the time you get to Nightmare on Identity Street 4, Freddy isn't so freighting and you have some tools to deal with him.

Besides, your insecure connected kettles could be exposing your WiFi passwords without your knowledge. Now that's scary!

ps

Related

• Survey: More Americans say 'boo' to the ID theft boogeyman
• America’s Top Fears 2015
• Connected kettles boil over, spill Wi-Fi passwords over London
• The Breach of Things
• The Reach of a Breach
• 5 Stages of a Data Breach

Technorati Tags: identity theft,breach,privacy,crime,fears,silva,fraud

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Security’s FUD Factor

Had a short but interesting twitter exchange with @securityincite @Gillis57 and @essobi ‏(Mike Rothman, Gillis Jones and not sure (sorry!!) respectively) about using Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt when talking IT security services.  @Gillis57 initially asked, ‘Question: We discuss FUD constantly (and I agree that it's too prominent) But isn't security inherently built upon fear?’  I sent an ‘09 Rothman article (@securityincite said it was ‘old school’ but still has some great comments) about that very topic.  Soon, @essobi chimed in with, ‘Our foundation shouldn't be fear, it should be education. :D,’  @Gillis57 responded, ‘So, look. I agree wholeheartedly, but why do people need to be educated?’  @essobi answered, ‘imo? Bad programming/exploitable logic processes. we need to raise the bar or lower expectations.’  @Gillis57 added, ‘I really don't think we need to keep selling fear, but denying that we are a fear based industry isn't helping.’  @securityincite wizdom’d with, ‘Fear is a tactic like anything else. Depends in situation, context, catalyst. And use sparingly.’  And I conceded that, ‘splitting hairs but I try to talk about risk rather than fear -  what's the risk if...which often generates fear.’

Most of the time when we talk about security there is a fear factor because we are talking about risk.  Risk is the potential for something Bad happening and typically those things scare or make us uncomfortable.  Often when vendors talk about things like protection, benefits, etc, it’s measured in terms of numbers, stats, performance…metrics. 

Security is also about Peace of Mind; a feeling that you have.  Those military people who can get some good sleep even with bullets flying over their heads have peace of mind.  Even in a very high risk, dangerous, vulnerable and insecure environment, they feel secure.

I saw an article about the difference between selling insurance and the lottery – Fear vs. Dreams.  Maybe we should discuss IT Security in terms of how it has made an IT guy’s life better?  I think it would be cool if ‘security’ case studies included a side bar or something with a quote that brags, ‘Now that we have this solution installed, I’m able to attend my daughter’s piano recitals.’  ‘I’m able to get a good night’s sleep knowing that our web site is ok/won’t get paged at 3AM/won’t have to work for 16hrs.’  Adding to the quality of life over and above the usual ROI/TCO/performance/$$.

How it may have enhanced life.

How it gave peace of mind.

How it Reduced Stress.

How it allowed someone to be home for dinner.

How it allowed someone to enjoy the weekend, do that Science Fair thing with the kid, take a longer vacation…

It might be cool for the industry (and the general public) to read how another’s life improved when security is deployed along with all the breaches and headaches.  Ultimately, that’s what we are all chasing as humans anyway – that harmony, balance, peace of mind, quality of life, family, love…the cores of our being rather than what we do for a job – even though our work does have a lot to do with quality of life.  I also think that education is part of our duty.  Not in the ‘Knights of the Roundtable’ duty but if someone needs our security expertise and is willing to learn, sharing (and ultimately, awareness) is important to ensure a more informed public.  That is simply being a good internet citizen.  And yes, fear does have it’s place especially when someone is not getting it or ignoring that others are at risk.

We frequently talk in terms of rational thinking ($$/performance) when security is quite often about an emotional feeling.  That’s why some often use FUD to sell security: Fear: emotional, Uncertainly: more emotional than rational, Doubt: gut feeling with little data.  But instead of tapping those negative emotions, we should shoot for the Feel Good emotions that provide safety and security.  The Dream.

-eh, just an idea.  And many Mahalos to @securityincite @Gillis57 and @essobi for a blog idea.

ps

References

• Abandon FUD, Scare Tactics and Marketing Hype
• Are you Selling Fear or Dreams?
• Death to FUD Selling
• FUD creeping back into security sell
• Time To Deploy The FUD Weapon?
• How To Sell Security Solutions Without Using Fear, Uncertainty And Doubt
• Researchers Warn Against Selling On Security Hype
• How to Sell Security, Externality and FUD
• How to Sell Security
• The Four Horsemen of the Cyber-Apocalypse: Security Software FUD (awesome article)

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