Why Young People Are Worse With Cybersecurity

Young people pay less attention to computer security

This study has been carried out by SailPoint. It has shown that younger users are the ones who make the biggest mistakes and are less aware of risks, especially when working and using different tools in their day to day, such as email.

Specifically, they indicate that 59% of workers use corporate e-mail for their personal use. But if we focus on the youngest, Generation Z, this figure rises to 93%. We already know that using work email for personal use is a significant problem, as it could be the entry point for malware and put both the company and our personal computers at risk.

But in addition, this same report indicates that 7% of Generation Boomers and 15% of Generation X use work email to log into social networks, while the figure increases considerably to 77 and 55% for Generations Z and Millennials, respectively.

Many users admit that they even use this email to make online purchases and that they have seen the number of Phishing emails they receive increase. This logically puts cybersecurity at work once again at risk.

Not everyone acts the same in the face of danger

Now, how would you act in case of suspicion or possible security danger? According to this report, in the case of receiving a suspicious email, with an attachment that could be Phishing, 46% of Gen Z respondents said they would open that link or download the file. Millennials make up 29%. On the other hand, of generation X only 4% would open that link or download the file, while the Boomers only 1%.

We see that there are important differences between some generations and others. It is clearly seen that the youngest have a worse behavior towards cybersecurity, while the older ones act more securely against any possible attack or risk.

Now, no matter how old we are, it is important to bear in mind that it is vital to maintain certain levels of security when surfing the net. This becomes even more important when it comes to working connected to the Internet and where we are going to have to process certain corporate data or use business mail.

We have already seen that, for example, the work motive can be a security problem. This means that we have to take care of what we install, what service we use, or how we use technology. The goal is to prevent cyber attacks that steal data or cause a malfunction.