‘Digital Amnesia’ Prevalent Among US Consumers, Cybersecurity Firm Kaspersky Says

Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab coined the term “digital amnesia” to describe the phenomenon of forgetting information that Americans trust a digital device to store and remember for them, the company said Wednesday in a report. That the phenomenon is so prevalent points up the need for Americans to adequately protect their devices with “readily available IT security products,” but protection of the sort that Kaspersky and others sell is lacking, the report said. Kaspersky canvassed 1,000 U.S. consumers aged 16 to 55 online in May and found that 91 percent “can easily admit their dependency on the Internet and devices as a tool for remembering and an extension of their brain,” it said. And 44 percent said their smartphone holds almost everything they need to know or recall. “Not surprisingly, the study also found that the loss or compromise of data stored on digital devices, and smartphones in particular, would leave many users devastated,” the company said. But in the study, 28 percent admitted they don’t protect any of their devices with “additional security,” it said. The firm said it found just one in three installs extra IT security on a smartphone, one in five on a tablet.