In advance of the 2019 Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, Black Hat USA has released its latest report on the growing concerns of consumers.
Based on survey responses from conference attendees, the report, Consumers in the Crosshairs, looks at consumer concerns about their personal data potentially ending up in the hands of criminals as well as the ways in which security will affect the 2020 US presidential election.
According to the report, more than 60% of security professionals feel there is a strong likelihood that voting machines will be hacked, resulting in an impact on the next US election. The same number of respondents believe that Russian cyber initiatives will specifically have a significant impact on the US presidential election in 2020.
The protection of consumer data is an equally concerning cyber threat for industry professionals. The report found that 90% of security professionals believe that no matter how careful individuals are, their data will most likely end up available to criminals if it isn’t already being accessed or sold on the dark web at this very moment.
In fact, few security professionals, only 30%, believe that consumers will actually be able to protect their privacy and identities in the future. Fewer, only 25%, said that consumer identity protection services are actually effective. An even smaller percentage, only 21%, have faith that the government and private sector are prepared to respond to an attack on US critical infrastructure.
The use of social media is one channel that contributes to the challenge of protecting privacy and identity. An overwhelming majority (75%) of survey respondents said that using any social network is a bad idea, with Facebook identified as having the highest risk by 80% of respondents. “Instagram was red-flagged by more than 70%, LinkedIn nearly 60%, SnapChat at 58%, Twitter with 53%, and 51% listed Pinterest,” according to a press release.