Living Secure
A global survey showcasing
the digital moments thatmatter most in 2023

CEO Welcome
Today almost everything we do is digital; we shop, exercise,work, socialize, relax and unwind, and all whilst being
connected. So, when considering cyber security, our role
becomes much more about securing digital moments
than devices.
To help consumers fully protect their digital lives, we need totruly understand these moments. Only by immersing ourselvesin people’s lives and experiences can we give them the sense ofsecurity they need and deserve. It’s this goal which has driven
us to commission this important piece of research.
The ‘Living Secure’ survey collects insight from 7,000 people,
in selected regions around the world, enabling us to create acomprehensive overview of digital moments in 2023.
The results of this survey are illuminating. They illustrate theonline activities that make us feel vulnerable; they reveal thedigital moments we value the most, and they highlight thatsocial interactions are as important as they’ve ever been, evenwhen they’re taking place in the digital world.

2Living Secure

Timo Laaksonen
CEO F-Secure

Contents

3CEO Welcome2

Who we surveyed

4Digital moments

6

Trust in 2023

8

Moments of vulnerability

10What we value and protect

12

Family focus

14

Generational difference

16

Methodology

17

Living Secure

47%

52%

Our lives are now punctuated by digital moments, whether
that's sending emails, dating, working, or buying goods online.
And to underscore how digitally connected our lives havebecome, the ‘Living Secure' survey reveals the importance andimpact of these moments.

4

Living Secure

Gender20%

FemaleOther/Prefer not to say

16%

0%

19%

19%

20%

Age (years)
18-24

25-34

35-44

45-54

55-64

65-74

43%

19%

11%

10%

9%

5%

4%

Stay athome parent

12%

Student

13%

10%

Unemployed

Male

Full time/part time
worker (remote)However, despite the importance that digital moments occupy
in our lives, the overwhelming majority of respondents (66%)
said that they found cyber security too complex, with 51%
responding that they had no idea if their devices were protected
or not; an interesting statistic, given that 74% say they use
security products on their computer (see page 5), suggesting aneed for better education around cyber security.

30%

Full time/part time
worker (hybrid)

This increase in the amount of time we spend in the digital world
has built up a tremendous amount of personal data, which oursurvey shows is incredibly important to people, illustrated by thefact that a majority of respondents around the globe (57%) said
they would rather have their car stolen than their identity (seepage 5).

40%

RetiredAccording to our data, respondents spend an average of eight
hours a day online (that's a third of their lives). This is more timethan most people spend sleeping. And this data also shows thatour digital experience is consistently split in half, between workand leisure.

50%

Full time/part time
worker (on-site)

Who we surveyed

Occupation

1%

Free vs paid security

A need for simpler cyber security

We asked: “Do you have an internetsecurity product in use?”

We asked people whether they agreed with the statement:“I find cyber security too complex.”
50%

26%

40%

32%

30%

20%

People spend an
average of 8 hours
online every day.
More time than most*of us spend sleeping.
*According to UK YouGov data from 2022, 70% of people sleep for seven hours or less.

42%

No

Yes, free10%

Yes, paid

0%11%Strongly
disagree23%

42%

Somewhat Somewhat
disagree
agree

24%

Strongly
agree

57% would rather
have their car stolen
than their identity.
5Living SecureDigital moments
The top 20 most important online activities from the ‘Living
Secure’ survey (see page 7) represent the digital moments thatplay the most crucial role in our lives.
Our data reveals that people place particular importance on
digital activities that affect their finances, with ‘paying bills’
being the second most important task, ‘finance and banking’appearing in third place, and ‘online shopping’ taking fifth place.
And this survey data indicates that the online activities we deemthe most important are also the ones that—as a general rule—
have the most potential for financial loss, and therefore require
the most security when undertaking them.
Alongside finance-related tasks, communication was the topic
that respondents prioritized. Sending and receiving emails wasrecorded as the most important task that people undertake.
With sending and receiving text messages taking the fourth
spot in our list.
After communication and finance, another theme that emerged
as important to our respondents was entertainment, withwatching TV and movies online, streaming music, playing
games, and watching short videos all appearing in the top 20.
And these findings reveal that—when it comes to the online
activities that we place the most importance on—mattersof money, personal communication, and entertainment takecenter stage.

6

Living Secure

Almost half said the top
activity they do online issend or receive emails.

76%
6%
10%
12%
13%
13%
13%
13%
15%
17%
18%
18%
19%
21%
23%
31%
36%
36%
43%
45%

Sports tracking
Completing official
tasks/documents
Using maps andnavigation
Playing games

Making video calls
Checking theweather forecast
Watching shortvideos (TikTok etc.)
Consuming social
media content
Seeking
information/studying
Working online

Streaming music

Making voice calls
TV/movie
streaming
Reading the news

Online shopping
Sending/receiving
messages
Finance andbanking
Paying bills
Sending/receiving
emails0%Online medicalconsultation

50%
50%

40%

Top 20 important
online activities

30%

Living Secure40%

We asked our 7,000 survey respondents
which online activities were of mostimportance to them.
30%

20%
20%

10%
10%

0%

Trust in 2023
Our survey data revealed that a large proportion of respondents
have concerns about online security. And nearly seven out of10 (69%) respondents in our target countries say that they don’tknow who to trust online (65% in the UK, 66% in Germany, and
68% in Finland).
Similarly, 70% of respondents agreed that they “worry about
their family's online safety.” In addition, the majority of users inevery country surveyed (other than the UK) said they have noidea if their devices are secure (in the UK, 48% agreed with thissentiment).
The data also indicates that some respondents may have fallen
victim to digital scams in the past. And more than a quarter ofpeople (27%) agreed that they “think they've fallen for a digital
scam in the past 12 months.” Additionally, 64% agreed that they“think their cyber threat risk is going to increase next year.”
But when it comes to knowledge and awareness about
online security, the results are mixed. A significant number ofrespondents (60%) agreed that they “don’t know how to identify
a legitimate online shop,” and 51% agreed that they “have noidea if their devices are secure.” And considering that 79% said
that they “enable two-factor authentication when available,” and70% said they “find it easy to spot scams and digital threats”,
there is clearly confusion amongst respondents about their
online protection.

8Living Secure

How people feel about security
We asked people to provide us with responses to the following statements.

30%

73%

40%

49%

70%

27%

60%

51%

“I worry about myfamily’s safety online”“I think I’ve fallen for adigital scam in the last
12 months”“I don’t know how tospot a legitimate online
shop”“I have no idea if mydevices are secure”

Disagree
30%

21%

36%

70%

79%

64%

“I find it easy to spot
scams and digitalthreats”“I enable two-factor
authentication whenavailable”“I think cyber threats
will increase next year”

69% feel they
don’t know whoto trust online.

Agree75% of respondents worry about
their own safety online.
EXPERT INSIGHT
We observe different
forms of scamming
attempts every day atF-Secure. Avoid clicking
on links directly in emails,
direct messages ortext messages. Keep
devices updated, use
strong passwords
and multifactor
authentication to protect
your online identity.
Laura Kankaala, ThreatIntelligence Lead.

9Living Secure

Moments ofvulnerability

EXPERT INSIGHT
Criminals commonly

We asked people to tell us how vulnerable they felt when
taking part in different online activities (see page 11). And
our data revealed that people are most concerned about
their vulnerability while using online dating apps, with 42% ofrespondents indicating that they felt vulnerable when looking forlove online. Elsewhere, 35% of respondents said that gambling
online made them feel vulnerable, and 29% of respondents said
creating social content was an activity that heightened theirvulnerability.

use social media anddating apps to reachus. Dating apps are alucrative ground for cybercriminals to exploit. With
“pig butchering scams”,
where victims are lured

With regards to other activities, around a quarter of respondents
felt vulnerable while consuming social media content, playing
games, online shopping, paying bills and working online. And
25% of respondents felt vulnerable when managing their smart
home devices.
Activities like watching short videos, streaming music andaudiobooks, and news reading had slightly lower scores, with
15-20% of people indicating that they felt vulnerable during
these activities.
Our results show that people are most concerned about
activities that are related to social and personal aspects of theirlives, like dating, gambling, and creating social content, as wellas activities that involve personal information sharing, such as
online shopping, paying bills and working online.

10Living Secure

to invest all of their moneyin fake crypto investment
opportunities, on theincrease. These types ofAround a quarter
felt vulnerable while
playing games.

scams leverage social
media and dating apps,
using stolen photos of
attractive people to lurein victims.
Laura Kankaala, ThreatIntelligence Lead.

1117%
18%
18%
19%
19%
21%
21%
21%
21%
22%
22%
24%
25%
25%
25%
27%
29%
29%
35%
42%

Using maps andnavigation
Streaming
audiobooks/podcasts
Watching shortvideos (TikTok etc.)
Sports tracking

Working online
Online medicalconsultation
Health monitoring

Paying bills
Making video calls(work)
Completing official
tasks or docs
Finance andbanking
Online shopping
Managing smart
home devices
Playing games
onlineChecking up on
kids online
Consuming social
media content
Creating social
content
Gambling online
Using online dating
apps

0%
Making video calls(friends/family)

45%
45%

40%

35%

Top 20 online activities thatmake us feel vulnerable

30%

Living Secure

40%

35%

We asked our 7,000 survey respondents to tell us which online
activities made them feel most vulnerable.
30%

25%
25%

20%
20%

15%
15%

10%
10%

5%
5%

0%

12

Living Secure

60%

40%

27%

Yes
No

20%

0%

57%

36%

0-10001001+

Don’t know

68%

6%

None

60%
50%

Most important data40%

We asked: “What is the most importantdata stored on your device?”

30%
20%

58%

45%

40%

33%

29%

19%

10%

10%

6%

5%

Games

Health data

Other

Fitness
progression

0%

Notes

10%

Messages

This considerable value people assign to their photos (anddata generally) is supported by the fact that almost seven in 10
people back up their photos, and almost eight out of 10 (79%)
say they enable two-factor authentication when available (seepage 8), which is one of the best tactics for avoiding accounttakeovers and identity theft.

5%

Other login
details

And what’s saved on a phone is worth more than the actual
device to many users (see page 13). Nearly seven out of 10
people (69%) say the data currently saved on their phones isworth €501 or more and a majority (52%) say the contents of
their phones is worth €1,001 or more. With one in 12 saying theirdata was “priceless”. And 57% of people even said they valued
their data more than their car. (See page 5.)

We asked: “Do you back up the photos taken on
your device?”

Passwords

Worries about preserving photos make sense when you
consider the abundance of images many carry in their pockets.
More than one-third of respondents (36%) have more than 1,000
images on their mobile devices.

We asked: “How many photos do you have on
your smartphone?”

Contact
details

According to our data, the most important items on people’s
devices either capture or enable personal connections. Aroundhalf of our respondents named photos and contact details as
the items they would miss most on their phones if they were tolose them (see opposite), over passwords and login credentials.

Backing up photos

PhotosWhat we value
and protect

Photos on our devices

The price we put on our data
We asked: “What price would you put on the data currently stored on your phone (important work files,
personal photographs of family and friends, all your contacts etc.)?”

EXPERT INSIGHT

20%

Backing up pictures15%

to cloud services, forexample iCloud or

10%

Google Drive, is easy
and in many cases it
can be set to be done

5%

automatically. However,8%

Priceless

9%Over €5,000

17%€2501-5,000

18%€1001-2,500

17%€501-1,0009%€251-500

11%€101-25011%€0-1000%38% of people have shareddigital login details in thepast (Netflix, Facebook etc.)
13Living Secure

be sure to protect
your cloud accounts
with strong uniquepasswords, Multifactorauthentication and—especially in the case ofiCloud—avoid answering
truthfully to security
questions that allow
recovery of your account.
Laura Kankaala, ThreatIntelligence Lead.

Family focus
Parents with children residing in the home rely on the internet
and their devices more than other adults. These ‘connectedparents’ report spending 10 hours a day online, two hours or 25%
more online than those who reside without children. Notably,
those two hours are spent either on work or study. And half ofall parents (50%) report having more than 1,000 photos on theirsmartphones, which is nearly twice as many as adults whodon’t reside with their children (29%).

Social media use amongst children
We asked: “Do kids residing in your home use social media?”

36%

Yes
No64%

Connected parents also have considerable concerns about thesafety of their children online. With 70% of parents saying thatthey worry about their child’s social media activity, and 64%
saying that they worry about their child’s safety when they areplaying video games.
General cyber security worries seem to increase when kids arein the home, too. With a greater number of people with children
residing in their homes (34%) responding that they think they
have fallen for a scam in the last 12 months (versus 21% for thosewith no children residing with them).
And, as we might expect to see, people with children residing
with them also show greater online security concerns fortheir families in general, with 82% of adults who have children
residing in their homes reporting that they worry about family
safety, versus 63% for people that don’t have kids residing withthem (see page 15).

14Living Secure

70% of parents worry
about the safety of theirchild’s social media activity.

Video gaming amongst children

Worries about family safety

We asked: “Do kids residing in your home play video games?”

We asked who agreed with the statement:“I worry about my family’s safety online.”

Scams can take place

25%
82%

Yes
No

With kids residing at home
63%

EXPERT INSIGHT

Without kids residing at homeeven in gaming platforms—especially online
games. Oftentimes,
in-game items can have‘real life’ monetary value

75%

and stolen accounts oritems can be sold forprofit. Encourage andWe asked: “Do you worry about your kids
being safe when gaming?

help children in setting
up strong passwords andin case their accounts
are compromised, aid36%

64%

them in the recovery

Yesprocess. In the case thatNo

any money has been lost,
contact your bank andfile a police report.
Laura Kankaala, ThreatIntelligence Lead.

15

Living SecureGenerational
difference

EXPERT INSIGHT
Anyone can fall victim tocyber crime, regardlessYounger adults spend much longer online compared to older
people. People between the ages 18 and 34 report spending
almost half their day (11 hours) connected, with six hours spent
on work and study, and five hours on leisure (32% more thanpeople aged 35 and older). But, perhaps the most striking
generational digital difference revealed in this data has to dowith the way people communicate.

of age or gender. Scams
online take many
forms—criminals cancoerce victims to invest
money in scam crypto

For the general population, sending and receiving emails is thedigital activity respondents say is the most important to them,with 93% saying that they send or receive emails at least once amonth. However, amongst internet users 18 to 34, messaging isregarded as the most important digital activity, and email drops
to fourth place. More than six in 10 younger adults (61%) reportsending a message daily, compared to 48% who send an email
every day.
Another generational difference shows up in cybersecurity hygiene, with fewer people aged 35 and over (33%)
compromising their password security by sharing login details
to sites like Netflix or Facebook, compared to younger adults
aged 18 to 24 (52%). And this more relaxed approach to sharing
passwords indicates that extra time spent online doesn’t makeyoung adults more security conscious. In fact, it may have theopposite effect.

16Living Secure

opportunities, steal theirbanking credentials
via malicious emails
or phone calls, or evenmake them fall in love.
Billions of euros are lost

52% of people aged
18 to 24 compromise
password security.

in scams worldwide,
making cyber crime
extremely profitable in
the previous year as wellas years to come.
Laura Kankaala, ThreatIntelligence Lead.

Methodology
For the ‘Living Secure’ survey F-Secure

MEET THE EXPERT

wanted to study the importance andLaura Kankaala is ThreatIntelligence Lead at F-Secure.

impact that digital moments have onKankaala studied at Finland’s

our daily lives. The survey captures

Turku University of Applied
Sciences before working

which activities are most important

as a security consultant for

to us, it covers those which make uscompanies such as KPMG
and F-Secure. Kankaala is anfeel most vulnerable, and it highlights
which digital moments we deem mostimportant to protect.
The F-Secure consumer survey, ‘Living Secure’, was undertaken in
December 2022. The online survey was conducted in cooperation withDynata. And the total number of respondents was 7000, selected fromseven countries: Brazil, Finland, France, Germany, Sweden, UK and USA(N = 1000/country, age 18-75 years).

17Digital Moments

active columnist, speaker, andpodcaster, and she is a regular

Laura Kankaala
Threat Intelligence Lead F-Securecontributor to F-Alert, F-Secure’s
monthly threat report.

About F-Secure
F-Secure makes every digital moment moresecure, for everyone. We deliver brilliantly
simple, frictionless security experiences thatmake life easier for the tens of millions of people
we protect and our 170 partners.
For more than 30 years, we’ve led the cybersecurity industry, inspired by a pioneering spiritborn out of a shared commitment to do better byworking together.
For more information visit F-Secure today.