Almost half of Romanian users of smart gadgets are afraid that hackers could control their devices remotely, according to an iSense Solutions study ordered by Internet security software company Bitdefender.

The study was carried out at the end of 2016 on some 2,000 people in Romania, the U.S., UK, Germany, France, and Australia.

According to this study, 70% of Romanians own a smartphone, laptop, tablet, smart TV, or desktop computer, and nearly a quarter of urban Romanians purchased last generation terminals such as smartwatches (24%), home surveillance cameras (21%), and e-readers (20%), reports local Agerpres.

In this context, some 46% of respondents said that they are afraid of the possibility that hackers could control their devices remotely, which exposes them to identity theft, espionage and invasion of privacy.

The study also shows that most Romanians fail to update in time the operating systems of their devices, even those they are using frequently, such as laptops, tablets, or computers. Some 20% of laptop users and more than half of smart TV owners failed to update the software to the latest version. Most of them said that haven’t done that because they lack the time, or they don’t have the necessary knowledge for such an operation.

Moreover, over a quarter of Romanians use the same password for all their devices and accounts, and 29% have a few passwords they use by rotation.

Bitdefender experts warn against the use of identical passwords, especially those composed only of letters, and recommend replacing them with various combinations of letters, numbers, and symbols, and changing them regularly.

Study: almost a third of Romanian internet users release personal information online

Over 6.4 million Romanians use the Internet daily, statistics show

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com