RSA Security, a division of EMC, released its’ 2010 Global Online Consumer Security Survey, polling more than 4,500 Internet users in 22 countries regarding their awareness of online threats, concerns with the safety of their personal information online and their willingness to share it, and their desire for better identity protection. The white paper points out that 76 percent of consumers are aware of the threat of phishing and what it means, up from just 38 percent in 2007. However, even with the increased awareness of phishing, 29 percent of survey respondents claimed they had fallen for a phishing scam, compared to only 5 percent who had cited the same in the 2007 survey.

Consumers also agreed that their identities should be better protected than a simple username and password on social networking (59 percent), healthcare (64 percent), government (70 percent) and online banking (80 percent) Websites. Nine out of 10 consumers would be willing to use a stronger form of security if it were offered.

Survey respondents also indicated that they expected their banks to conduct some level of transaction monitoring on their online banking accounts to detect unusual activity. Among those surveyed, 90 percent stated they expect their banks to monitor their Internet banking transactions, a slightly higher number compared to 2007 where 82 percent indicated the same opinion.

Click here to read RSA’s full report.

Source: RSA 2010 Global Online Consumer Security Survey, RSA, The Security Division of EMC, January 2010