Many people have a smart device at home, but regularly forget to update their devices, have no time or underestimate its importance. This is apparent from a survey by Panelwizard that was carried out earlier this year on behalf of EZK.
Not updating your smart devices makes you an easier target for hackers. Because if you don’t perform updates, the software will become obsolete. Cyber criminals can digitally break into your home through errors in the outdated software and thus steal your data. And you want to prevent that. The research shows that the Dutch have on average more smart devices at home than they think: the respondents estimate that they use an average of 2.4 smart devices per household, but after seeing a list of smart devices, the number increases to 2. ,6. The people who initially thought they had no smart devices at home, changed their answer to one or two.
The most popular smart devices are:
- Smart TV (54.4%)
- Printer (46.6%)
- Smart watch (24.7%)
- Smart speaker (23.7%)
- Smart thermostat (20.5%)
How many smart devices do you have at home? View our questionnaire.
Updates
It is remarkable that slightly more than half of the respondents sometimes forget to update the smart devices. At least 65% do not regularly check whether updates are available and 54% even postpone the updates. When asked why people postpone updates, ‘no time’ appears to be the biggest reason. In addition, 52% of respondents find it difficult to update devices to some extent. Read more about the importance of regularly updating your smart devices and how you can do this easily.
Internet crime
Regularly updating your smart devices not only ensures that the device continues to work properly, but also protects against internet crime. In corona times, cyber criminals are making more use of vulnerabilities in routers and IoT equipment for consumers in order to gain access to, for example, the company network.
The importance of doing your updates is sometimes underestimated, according to the aforementioned research. Nearly 15% of respondents believe that criminals cannot access personal data if a smart device is hacked. More than 13% cannot imagine that smart devices can give hackers access to your home network. When asked whether people ever worry, a third answered yes. At least 35% are not worried, because there is little chance that this will happen to them or that their data is not of interest to criminals.
Bill
The cabinet is working on a bill to make it mandatory to offer updates on smart devices. That plan helps users to make updates, an idea that has been well received by those surveyed. More than 71% expect smart devices to keep working longer due to an ‘update obligation’ and 67% think that making the updates mandatory is a good idea.
About the research
This research is conducted among 1,201 Dutch people aged 16 to 65. The research was carried out by Panelwizard on behalf of the Ministry of Economic Affairs & Climate. Want to learn more about doing updates and protecting your smart devices? Then view the campaign Get your updates on www.veiliginternetten.nl/doejeupdates.
In collaboration with the national government.
