1 in 5 Americans is Most Fearful of a State-Sponsored Cyber Attack that Targets the U.S. Elections

BOSTON, and BE'ER SHEVA, Israel, Nov. 06, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- With the US midterm elections today, Morphisec -- the leader in Moving Target Defense (MTD) -- is officially releasing the Morphisec U.S. Citizen Threat Index of a State-Sponsored Cyber Attack, a survey administered between October 19th and 21st to 1,000 U.S. respondents aged 18+ and weighted for the U.S. population by age, region, and gender.

After announcing last month that it is working with the Department of Homeland Security to develop technologies that will prevent attacks against critical U.S. infrastructure, Morphisec commissioned the inaugural U.S. Citizen Threat Index to better understand Americans perceptions around state-sponsored cyber attacks as they head to the polls.

Here are some of the survey's highlights:

• 54% of Americans believe the threat of a state-sponsored attack is either "elevated" or "imminent".
• 1 in 5 Americans is most fearful of a state-sponsored cyber attack that targets the U.S. elections, and that number jumps to 1 in 4 for American women.
• This fear of a targeted attack aimed at affecting election results came out above Americans fears of a state-sponsored attack that disrupts communication, sabotages physical infrastructure, or cripples transportation.
• 61% of Americans noted that they believe that the private sector has better cybersecurity defenses currently than government does for thwarting state-sponsored cyber attacks.
• 63% of Americans feel that adversaries propagating misinformation on social networks pose a more significant threat to the elections than cyber attacks against the actual voting system.

"As Americans participate in the midterm elections today, our data reveals an overwhelming fear of a state-sponsored cyber attack that targets the U.S. elections, and an elevated state of uncertainty based on the potential for cyber interference," said Tom Bain, vice president of Marketing, Morphisec. "This fear is being exacerbated by their belief that the private sector has better cybersecurity defenses currently than the government does for thwarting state-sponsored cyber attacks designed to potentially target the voting system, not just today, but in the future."

• A more detailed look at the results can be found, here.

About Morphisec

Morphisec offers an entirely new level of innovation to customers in its Endpoint Threat Prevention platform, delivering protection against the most advanced cyber attacks. The company's patented Moving Target Defense technology prevents threats others can't, including APTs, zero-days, ransomware, evasive fileless attacks and web-borne exploits. Morphisec provides a crucial, small-footprint memory-defense layer that easily deploys into a company's existing security infrastructure to form a simple, highly effective, cost-efficient prevention stack that is truly disruptive to today's existing cybersecurity model.

SOURCE Morphisec