The research, which was commissioned by Kaspersky Lab and undertaken by Applied Marketing Research, surveyed 600 mid-sized companies along with more than 6,000 consumers.  

Covering six countries in Europe and North America, the study found that people are concerned that hackers, employers and even friends and family might want to access their online data.  

Unwelcomed Intruders 

Naturally, the top unwelcome intruders in this survey were cyber criminals. With 45% of businesses and 47% of consumers acknowledging they were concerned about malicious attacks.  

However, the second most common concern was protecting data from their own government. Foreign governments were also a significant cause for concern among the survey’s respondents, highlighting the growing global concerns over state-sponsored cyber attacks.  

More than one-quarter (26%) of respondents also said they are concerned about their family members snooping on their online activities and accessing data.  

Dr Milton Mueller of Georgia’s Institute of Technology said the survey findings “address the nexus between nationalism, national security and trust in internet service providers” while acknowledging how consumers view the role of government in cybersecurity.  

He added: “It was also interesting to see that consumers are more likely to fear their data will be interfered with by their own government than foreign governments.”

Cybersecurity Paranoia  

Consumer concerns also extended to cybersecurity, where there appears to be a widespread confusion about the information that cybersecurity providers can access.  

While the vast majority of businesses and consumers (87% and 82% respectively) said they trust their security provider to behave in a responsible – and ethical – manner, a portion of respondents noted they were concerned that providers may gather online data, opinions, location data or browsing habits and share it with foreign organisations.  

These results, Kaspersky Labs said, suggest that the current cybersecurity landscape has created an “environment of fear, uncertainty and doubt that has left many struggling to trust anyone at all online.”

Anton Shingarev, VP of Public Affairs at Kaspersky Lab, commented: “These research results provide further evidence that technologies and software are a black box for many companies. 

“They don’t know how they work, what’s inside, what data is collected or how it’s stored. As a result, they don’t trust vendors.”