Smartphone owners are careless about security, says survey.

Guys are more likely to get a virus on their smartphone than girls (36% vs 32%), and more than one third (34%) of survey respondents don’t have any anti-theft or antivirus security on their smartphones. Add to that nearly half of the people AVAST polled in the US said they did not back up their data or know if they did on their mobile devices. This is despite nearly one in ten saying they had lost their phone or it was stolen in the last 12 months. These results are from a recent smartphone survey conducted for antivirus software company, AVAST.

AVAST surveyed 9,060 people earlier this year in the US about smartphone ownership and use and have released the results today.

The findings suggest an ongoing disconnect people have with their phone and computer when it comes to security protection. Many smartphone users have not yet grown accustomed to thinking of their devices as small computers that store valuable, sensitive, and often priceless personal data.

One can now perform the same functions on their phone as the trusty PC or laptop, but the majority of people are still learning about the necessity to protect their phones from viruses and hacking.

This is despite AVAST finding more than 80 percent of respondents claim to be concerned about losing personal data.

Other findings

• People consider the following data as the most sensitive: Their passwords (79%), contacts (74%), emails (66%), photos/videos (57%) and calls and text messages (50%).
• In terms of phone usage, 87% say they have used their phone for calls and 80% for SMS texting. Other smartphone uses include browsing the internet (75%); email (72%); Facebook (67%); and as an alarm clock and checking the time (67%).
• The majority of smartphone users have owned the same device for less than two years (but greater than 12 months), and 76 percent do not intend on buying a new one in the next three months.
• Samsung is the most popular brand (35% for both male and females), followed by Apple (26% male/24% female).
• Most people connect to the internet via their data plan (80%) and 40 percent use public WiFi.

What brands are people loyal to?

Where once Blackberry dominated the market, it is now on the decline, keeping only a third of its customers and not gaining traction with new ones. The majority of former Blackberry users go to Samsung (37%).

iPhone is the most popular smartphone choice in the U.S. It keeps 76% of its current users followed by Samsung which keeps 67% of its users.

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