73% of families do not know how to cyber-protect their homes

• According to a survey carried out by S2 Grupo from its Hijosdigitales.es blog about "cybersecurity at home" 74% of households are exposed to cybercriminals for maintaining the router's source password.
• 59% of respondents say that nobody in their house controls the cyber-protection of connected devices.
• From S2 Grupo it has been emphasized that the creation of the figure of what they have called the "CISO at home" is already essential to ensure the cybersecurity of families.

Valencia, August 24, 2017. -

At home there is a growing number of devices "connected" to the network such as home automation devices, computers, tablets, smartphones, televisions or video consoles, among others. This means that families are gradually becoming more "exposed" to the action of potential cybercriminals if they do not adequately protect their environments. Given this situation, the specialized company, S2 Grupo, has conducted a survey through its blog: Hijosdigitales.es, on "cybersecurity at home" from which it has been found that 73% of families do not apply any kind of protection measure at home because they do not know what they can do or how to do it. In addition, 74% of families maintain home router passwords, which could make it easier for third parties to intervene with malicious intent. "The passwords that appear by default in the devices are easily accessible to anyone and even more so if they have specialized knowledge in communications or computer science. This is like leaving the door of our house open to anyone.

The same way we would not do this, if we want to protect our privacy and avoid being targeted by cybercriminals, we must change the original passwords for strong ones.", said José Rosell, associate-director of S2 Grupo. The survey concludes that 75% also admits to maintaining the original Wi-Fi home password, and of those who have changed it, only 48% say they have used strong passwords (those with more than eight characters and combinations of lowercase letters, numbers and symbols). In addition, 72.4% do not know what type of protection their Wi-Fi system implements.

Along with this, 59% of respondents said that there is no person in their home who is responsible for "domestic cybersecurity." "It is important to bear in mind that cybersecurity management in households is increasingly complicated because the number of devices connected to the network increases. This makes it essential to apply cyber-protection mechanisms. In the near future about 150 IP addresses will be registered in each European house, this supposes that its technological complexity will be superior to that of many SMEs of 5 years ago", declared Miguel A. Juan, associate-director of S2 Grupo. In this context, the team of experts of this company has indicated that the future involves the creation and establishment of a new figure that they have called the "CISO at home". It is a person who in each household is responsible for ensuring cybersecurity by checking the configuration of the computers, protection systems and scanning the network periodically to check that it is not being used by third parties, among other measures.

ProtegITs In order to increase cyber-protection in homes, S2 Grupo, within its scope of Corporate Social Responsibility, has launched the "ProtectIT" program through which more than 1,300 families are trained each year to provide them with the necessary resources to protect them when using the network and the New Technologies. ProtectIT is a program intended for organizations, that works with all their members and families in an innovative way to achieve an effective security culture in them. The goal is to increase the global level of cybersecurity and reduce the risk of incidents directly related to one of the key components in this area that are, precisely, people. To do this, among other measures, the participants are presented with shocking but everyday situations, which draw their attention to risk behaviors, their consequences and the influence they have on cybersecurity.

Hijosdigitales.es This blog, developed by S2 Grupo, has more than 15,000 visits daily from all over the world and has established itself as a meeting point for parents and children to promote the secure use of technology. It has a group of professionals specialized in security, social networks and technology with the objective of offering information of interest that is of help to groups that can be unprotected if they make an inappropriate use of this type of devices and tools.

More information: prensa@s2grupo.es