The Top Online Safety Concerns in 2024

You can check your closet for monsters, but it’s much harder to keep scammers and hackers at bay, and Americans know it. Our survey indicates that most harbor anxiety about internet safety.

What online safety issues are Americans most worried about? Lots of things, including stolen personal information, child safety, and identity theft.

The top online safety concern for Americans right now is stolen credit card information, with 53.4% saying they’re very concerned and 31.1% saying they’re somewhat concerned.

We’ve established that Americans are worried about their online safety, but are those worries translating into online diligence? Are we doing enough to protect ourselves online—and could we be doing more?

Let’s look at a few online safety statistics that came out of our survey.

91% of Americans have received a suspicious email or message they believed was a phishing attempt. (So … pretty much everyone, then.)

And this isn’t just a one-time thing: Bad actors are apparently “going phishing” on the regular. In September 2024, 67.5% of Americans received a phishing attempt within the last month, and 34.67% received one within the past week.

But why phishing? It’s one of the ways scammers can gather your personal information. Speaking of which, 27% of Americans have had their personal information sold on the dark web. And that’s only those who know about their info being sold—we have no way to track those who don’t.

And what do buyers do with this personal information? All kinds of things, including various types of identity theft. For instance, 46.6% of Americans have experienced credit card fraud and 30% have had their social media breached before.

So how can Americans avoid becoming another statistic?

There are a bunch of different ways you can protect your online information.

One obvious but often overlooked measure: change your password.

44.3% of Americans only change their passwords when required and 4.89% never change their passwords. If your password finds its way onto the dark web and you’ve never changed it, anyone and everyone suddenly can access the associated accounts. That includes personal email, business email, banking, streaming, and retail… all for the taking.

If you don’t change your password often (and even if you do), two-step authentication (aka two-factor authentication) can make your accounts more secure. 58.86% of Americans use two-factor authentication for some of their accounts. However, 10.72% still don’t use 2FA at all and 8.67% are unsure of what it is.

Changing your password and using 2FA aren’t the only fail-safes available. There are other ways to protect personal information online:

• 56% of Americans installed antivirus software
• 72% of Americans avoided public Wi-Fi for sensitive activities
• 42% of Americans used a password manager
• 55% of Americans have used a VPN

You can even take measures to protect your home Wi-Fi. Options include making it a private network, adding a secure password, and kicking off unknown users.

Reviews.org surveyed 1,000 Americans 16 years and older in September 2024. We designed the survey to gauge levels of concern around online safety and personal data threats with a +/- 4% margin of error and a confidence level of 95%.